If you walk down Calhoun Street, heading towards St. Charles Avenue and take a right at S. Robertson Street, you will end up behind Monroe Residence Hall. That’s how most Tulane students would recognize that area. The most observant may chuckle at a diamond-shaped faded yellow sign that reads: “Children at Play.” To me, though, it reminds me of the childhood memories I lost.
I grew up on Calhoun Street. I watched as, one by one, my friends sold their houses. I watched as landlords bought up the properties and out-of-state college students rented the houses. To another college student, this sounds great — more friends with off-campus housing. To a 7-year-old boy, this means fewer sleepovers, fewer lemonade stands and fewer friends. This also means, for my parents, more theft, more trash and more parking problems.
Since around 2019, locals have organized against this practice, creating a movement called Stop Doubles to Dorms, or STOPD2D. “The effect has been to displace long-term local residents for students, mostly from out of state, and bidding up the cost of housing to the extent that long-term local residents can no longer afford to live in the area,” their team wrote on the website.
“In addition, the density of the D2Ds create issues with parking, noise, and excessive trash,” they wrote. This can be seen just by walking the streets around campus. Beer cans and illegal parking abound.
“In one project, the developers, adding a camelback to a shotgun double, crammed in 10 bedrooms without adding any off-street parking,” they said. “They have already renovated the house next door and are putting in eight bedrooms, for a total of 18 bedrooms in 60 feet of lot frontage.”
The developers are profiting from the suffering of residents. A family of 5 won’t pay $10,000 a month to share a house with 5 college students. They would rather move to other parts of the city.
What happens to Uptown when all the residents are gone? Simply put, shops close. I can’t count on my hand the number of restaurants I once visited that are now closed up and abandoned.
But wouldn’t students replace the residents leaving? No, because students aren’t here year-round. Walking up and down Calhoun Street or Freret Street during the summer or winter breaks, the difference is astonishing. Not a single car lines the street in some cases, and trash and noise significantly decrease.
I am not advocating for students to live in dorms all four years of college. I am advocating for a Tulane University policy, as it would give more breathing room to the residential neighborhoods. I suggest that Tulane build designated off-campus housing, like they did with the Lux Recovery House. The blue house at 2210 Calhoun St. used to belong to an elderly lesbian couple who owned two beautiful golden retrievers. Now, it serves Tulane by giving struggling students a safe space to live. I believe Tulane would better control prices and the area to allow for residents and students to live together without one or the other getting preferential treatment.