To have a house, or not...that is the question...
 

Hey guys,

Just a random thought. How many of your chapters don't have a house? And of those, what are your thoughts? Do you wish you had a house or could you care less?

If you DO have a house, what are your rules for who MUST live there?

I'm in a chapter on a small campus. None of the greek organizations have housing (unless you count the guys who bought a house in town together and call it an "unofficial" house). Our campus has two major apartment complexes, and a bunch of members from each organizations live together, but as far as wether or not their national headquarters considers it official housing, I'm not sure.

When we colonized and chartered over a year ago, we had the option to get an apartment and have headquarters officially recognize it. The problem was, they were 4 bedroom apartments, they had to be filled, and due to our STUPID (yeah - I said it) national rules, the President and the Financial VP HAVE to live in housing.

Like I said, I'm on a small campus. We have alot of non-traditional students. I'm the financial VP (I'm 24 - started school late after doing the military, just to clarify), and at the time, our President was a 25 year old. Neither of us were thrilled with this prospect of being FORCED to live in chapter housing, and we both flat out refused. I could understand if the rule were....say, at least 2 executive board members had to live in chapter housing, but to force the president and FVP to do it?

I understand that at MOST campuses, housing is one of the big benefits of joining an organization - but on a campus like ours, with alot of non-traditional students, it's not so glamorous. I'm 24. I dont wanna live with a bunch of 18 year olds. I was on a ship for 4 years and I've experienced something very similar to "dorm life" and right now, I'm enjoying my solitary time when I'm at home by myself.

Okay, sorry to go off on a rant there...was just wondering if any of you had experienced a similar situation.

I'm just interested in hearing some other stories - whether or not you're all about having a house, or if your chapter is fine without one.

There are a lot of variables that need to be considered in the whole "house or not" debate. If your chapter is on a campus where everyone is housed and you aren't, it can make life difficult. Whether we like to admit it or not, there can be a perception of "What's wrong with them, can't they afford a house?" and so on. If your chapter is housed and others are not, you may find that more girls wish to join your group to have the experience of living in and immersing themselves in their college/sorority experience.

Amanda, what's ceiling on your campus and what's a normal formal recruitment total range there? How many students normally live in campus housing on your campus? I can't imagine it would be that difficult to fill an 8 bed structure for your chapter, but without knowing numbers I don't want to assume anything! Is your current housing situation a positive for your chapter in general? If not, has your executive board discussed the situation with your advisers and local house corporation officers?

In order to have and operate chapter housing, the housing simply must be filled to ensure sufficient income to do so. Also, often it's less expensive to live in chapter housing and/or it's comparably priced with more "perks" (housekeeping, cook, chapter kitchen, better furnishings, better security, etc) than campus or off-campus housing.

As for live-in requirements, that's a normal component of filling chapter housing AND of holding an executive office. If your organization only requires the CP and VP-F to live in you're really lucky! To me, these two officers are crucial live-ins, as they are most likely the point people for any chapter of any GLO concerning any risk/crisis management issues or financial issues. May I ask, does your sorority only require those two offices to live in for all chapters? I'm wondering this because I'm surprised that you aren't required to have at least a few other officers (standards, new member, recruitment/membership) also living in. Maybe because your capacity is so small you only have to have those 2 officers live in instead of a longer list of officers? If you haven't contacted your chapter's house corporation and other support personnel to ask these questions I strongly suggest you do so. You'll get much better answers than anyone on a message board could probably give you :)

Housed AOII chapters have certain officers that are required to live in. These include the CP and Chapter Treasurer along with others. We also elect a Property Manager and House Treasurer from the members who live-in.

I'm a proponent of competitive housing for all sororities on any given campus. If that means that they all have to fill a dorm floor, only have an designated meeting space or a suite, have a 100+ bed chapter mansion, or have nothing at all then that's how I'd like to see it across the board.


BTW--my collegiate chapter has been unhoused since it's installation in 1982 and it's been a struggle at times. We should finally have competitive housing in the fall of 2006 and I couldn't be happier about this prospect. All of the other sororities on that campus are hous
ed.

At my school, there are three on-campus dorms designated for Greek students. These dorms are older dorms (Pro: HUGE rooms, Con: No A/C). Each dorm has three floors. One dorm houses three sororities, one houses two sororities and overflow from any chapters.

The boys' dorm, Dorm C, is facing some changes. They have had difficulties filling their rooms, so there will be 3 fraternities on the first floor, random boys on the 2nd floor, and 2 fraternities and random boys on the 3rd floor. Although this is stressful because Greeks were promised "random-free" housing when we moved to these dorms, our school is in a huge housing crunch and so we cannot blame them for doing this.

Although I cannot speak for any other sorority, my sorority will also have randoms on the hall (upperclassmen women). Recruitment is the first week of September, so new members will switch dorm rooms with these randoms officially with the school so that we are able to fill the hall with members.

Each hall has a housing manager from the respective Greek organization. There is a Greek housing council. There are no non-Greek RAs (although it remains to be seen who will be responsible for the 2nd floor of the guys' dorm). Each hall has two rooms with the wall knocked out from in between, which have been converted into lovely chapter rooms. While we do not use these rooms as a meeting room, it is a nice lounge area, furnished by the chapter.

This housing situation is most beneficial to us at this point. It would be extremely costly for our Greek orgs to add houses at this point. It is enjoyable to live on campus and adds to our visibility, since the location of the Greek dorms is smack in the middle of other freshman-only dorms.

I also appreciate the more relaxed rules that we have living on campus compared to the strict rules we'd have if we had our own house, regarding alcohol and male visitors.

We have a live-in requirement. Each sister is required to live on the hall for a minimum of 2 semesters. If she cannot fulfill this obligation by the time she graduates, she must either appeal to our standards system with a viable excuse or pay a $500 fine. If, after Recruitment, we are still in a situation where rooms are not completely filled by new members, we will hold a drawing for who will fill those rooms, with anyone who has not completed their housing requirement going into the pot. We fluctuate from year to year on whether or not we require Exec members to live on the hall. Last year, Exec members were required to live on; this year, we are not required. It is a double-edged sword: we are now facing housing problems because almost no one from Exec is living there- but many of the current Exec members would not have run for office if they would have still had to live on the hall.

Carolina -

I KNOW that one of my "issues" with housing IS simply because I'm older. Believe me, had I gone straight to college out of high school, I probably would have wanted to join a sorority and live in housing. Part of me wonders what it would have been like to live in dorms, and such, but living with 70 of my not so closest friends on a ship was probably very close (if not drastically WORSE) than dorm conditions.

I considered living on campus for a while, It would have been *slightly* cheaper than my living-by-myself arrangements now, but the extra $$ that I'm spending is worth my privacy at this point.

Does sound liek it's gonna suck to have randoms living with y'all, but look at it this way - might be a good way to recruit - if they see you guys all the time, maybe they'll be interested in joining =) That's always a bonus, right?

I would be careful about taking a chapter apartment with your numbers where they are and also being a new chapter. On my college campus the fraternities whose numbers hovered around 25ish had houses built back in the early 1900's in the hey day of fraternities and house 30 men. During my four years, they were always struggling to fill the house and often (to an outsider) seemed to bid people to get the numbers. One of the most famous moments when XYZ convinced the entire baseball team to move in, in return for free cable, laundry and beer for the year. The houses other alternative was to lose it or take random students. Finally, last year, one of the fraternities lost their house on College Street (our Greek row) and now has a smaller house a block off the row. It was pretty heartbreaking to hear after all the struggle they lost it.

My chapter has a house with 10 women, a move up from our first house with 4 people and that is about 1/2 to 1/3 of our chapter. I would not suggest having a space that puts more than 1/2 to 1/3 of your chapter living together unless you have a chapter culture where people expect and can live in the house. There is nothing worse than having reslife call you mid summer because a sister punked out of living in. The other advange we've found is that when recruitment is hard and you have women living amongst non-greeks, it can be a great way to meet new pnms.

Houses sound like fun and are, but there is a ton of committment involved and are not ideal for every chapter. I would take the road of caution and not take a house at this point. If/when your numbers are 15 or higher, I would suggest looking into it. Meanwhile make an effort to always have a few sisters in an apt together so you at least have somewhere that you can all meet if need be.
I hope this helps!

i don't think it is really necessary to have a house, especially for smaller chapters. my collegiate chapter does not have one (total around 60) and their sisterhood is usually pretty tight (probs pop up every now and then, but when does that not happen?). i looked at is as more trouble....having an HCB, house mom, worrying about all the extra rules and trouble girls might try to get in to.

i'm a greek advisor and all my sorority total is 35. i also have a couple fraternities, anywhere from 15-40 men, and only one has a house (for 4) and a lodge (for meetings and events). it doesn't seem to really hurt the other chapters b/c they don't have a house. the largest one is the one that has a house, but there are other reasons why they are doing better and the other is not....

i think it just depends on the campus and the needs of the members.

Even for larger schools, I don't think houses are a HUGE issue. I've met a couple of girls who have gone to other schools because the sororities had houses, but not many. Even though chapter total at Auburn is around 160/170, I like not having a house. We have a dorm with a designated floor for our housing, half of the first floor is "ours" for overflow, and a chapter room in the basement of the dorm. Even though we share the dorm with Tri-Delta, it's not a big deal. It's like all the perks of a house (living/meeting place, etc.) with cheaper housing fees (janitorial would clean whether we wanted them or not b/c it's University housing, etc.) and much lower dues. My $315 a semester includes chapter/national dues and "rent" on the chapter room and dorm space. IMO, it beats thousands of dollars per semester.

Our school is a commuter school and there is no official greek row. There is a sprinkling of houses around. I don't really see the need for them since our campus is pretty compact and anyone who needs meeting space just uses one of the conference rooms or ballrooms in the Student Union.

A collection of my sisters rent together... have apartments... and all manage to have get togethers, pre-parties, recruitment events etc at different ones each semester. I think paying rent with a group of sisters works out just fine without an additional rent/upkeep charge to keep a House going.

I believe Alpha Xi Delta requires the President, FVP and House/Hall Manager to live in chapter housing at a minimum, I could be missing a few officers though. However, most chapters require all of executive council and have a policy of everyone living in housing for a mimumum of a year otherwise pay a chunk of money that made it worth moving up.

That's what I had: a hall. I LOVED living on the hall (and miss it at times when I can't decide what to wear! haha). As a former chapter president (so I speak from experience), the heartbeat of chapter is in housing IF you have it. That's where everyone hangs out, has meetings, shares stories, mops up the tears from loser ex-boyfriends, etc. How could a President have her finger on the pulse of the chapter if she wasn't living in the same area. Not to mention the Risk Mgmt. Sorority housing is substance and alcohol free, right? Well, the president has the sometimes daunting task of making sure it stays that way. What would happen if she wasn't there? As much as you want to trust all your sisters to follow the rules, we would be naive to think everyone would.

Headquarters, as well as the national orgs of other groups, has been dealing with chapter housing for 100+ years. If it was really a "stupid" policy do you really think it would still be in place? Doubtful.

Though it may not always make sense for your chapter, you must look at the bigger picture. FHQ has our best interests at heart!!!

That can go both ways...If it doesnt make sense and it ISN'T in the best interest of our chapter, then headquarters should practice leniency and understand that special circumstances should have to be made if this were to ever become a true issue for our chapter. After all, a chapter our size, with mostly non-tradional girls....wouldnt it SUCK for a member (who might be BEST for the position) to say "I refuse to be president, because I don't want to live in the house"??? I guarantee you, if housing came along while I'm still an active y'all would have to find someone to replace me, because I need my solitary privacy, and I'm not gonna live in a house cause somebody made me. Period. Maybe if I had been an active member 4 or 5 years ago...but now? No.

And before anybody gets defensive and thinks I'm lashing out at Trish - not gonna blow either of our covers, but lets just put it this way - she knows me and she's picking on me, and I'm just picking right back....it's the devils advocate syndrome.

You can always have members live together and have a home base without having an "official" house. Don't hang letters on it, don't hang composites, don't do anything that would make someone say "there's the XYZ house." If the living in is the national policy and it doesn't waver, an official house would be far more trouble than it's worth in your case.

Can you have any sort of mini-suite in your student center?

Oh, and this is the first I've heard that the president should be the one who makes sure alcohol rules are followed...that sounds like a job for the Standards board IMO.

YIKES! Trust me, that's an overall risk management nightmare waiting to happen. It may not be the official XYZ house, but if the perception is "that's where all the XYZs live every year" official may not matter when it comes to alcohol, injury or litigation (and so on, I'm not an attorney but know the "unofficial housing" thing is an issue that's watched closely at my local campus because of risk concerns.)

Now that I've read through this thread, that sounds like a much better alternative for Amanda's particular chapter. It may be that official housing is not the best option for their short or long term needs, especially if chapter sizes are so small on their campus. Perhaps an honest discussion with your house board and local/regional/network alumnae support personnel (whatever AZD calls them!) is past due? If there is anything else I could help with Amanda, please feel free to PM or post in the thread. Chapter housing is one area of operations I know about!

Alcohol rules are not necessarily the same thing as crisis management (as in, in any emergency the chapter president is in charge and must follow a set procedure unique to each GLO). Also, Risk Management is not just alcohol related, and again depending on the GLO the President may or may not be the one ultimately responsible.

There's only one (possibly two, don't quite know what is going on with Alpha Sig's "unofficial" house) org on our campus that is not housed. They did really well with recruitment this year...but then again, they're used to operating without a house, as they have since refounding.

I really enjoy the house...it's a great place to leave messages, drop by, borrow the stove, or just come by and steal the AC for a while. We had a debate going on if the Pledge Mistress should be required to live in...it was actually a HUGE issue during the election process. Bylaws say that Pres, Pledge Ed, House Manager must all live in...VP is *supposed* to...but the rule is bendable depending on the rent circumstances of said sister.

Expenses...
 

You're telling me - almost like Southern California!

By our campus (Long Beach State), it's not uncommon to pay 1600 to 1700 for a two-bedroom apartment.
It gets somewhat worse when you get one right by the beach.

Sometimes you'll find a good deal (being that there is no price control in Long Beach), but you have to look a lot.

The University Park (Baycrest) apartments by campus have people paying 750 for their own room.

As for us, we do have a chapter house. It's a victorian style house that was built in 1902.

Our chapter used to have a very nice Mansion right on the Beach when it was chartered in the 1950's. A re-chartering later led to us going elsewhere.

In fact, there was an unofficial Greek Row right on Ocean Blvd. (right on the water) back then in the 50's. But that no longer exists. Some of the houses still stand, and a lot of them look obviously like Fraternity/Sorority mansions.

The only house that retained its original location right by the water is Delta Zeta (they have a nice house with ocean views).