Veteran's Housing: Another Aspect

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

The decision to destroy the temporary housing now available for married students emphasizes the unhappy distinction between Harvard the university and Harvard the cold-hearted business enterprise, as well as the blunt point that what may be advantageous for the student may not be a profitable business venture.

None the less, it would seem that the availability of desirable living conditions at a reasonable cost would be an important factor in attracting students to the University. Many men have probably gone through a graduate school in the shabby atmosphere of a lodging house and cheap cafeterias, knowing Harvard only as a few academic buildings in which they spent a few hours a week. This leads to entirely different feelings than those which come from living within the University . . .

Since the University could not provide me with housing, I pay $80 a month to live in a highly inadequate two-room apartment. It is dirty, furnished with cheap pieces in poor taste, and offers me little privacy. Although I have a lavatory to myself, I must share the bathtub with ten other people. The place is too small to permit any entertaining, and so little resistant to sound that any noise can be heard throughout the building. Every time I step into my kitchen or go into the hall I hear the intimate sounds of my neighbor's lives. As a final touch, the landlady occasionally takes advantage of my absence to let herself in and snoop through my things.

My rent includes utilities, but it also is padded with a fee for the use of a motley collection of ten cent store dishes and pilfered restaurant flatware none of anything making a matched set. I am forced to use my own things, but I cannot avoid the charge any more than I can get all the services which (according to the listing with rent control) I am supposed to have. The maintenance is on a level with the rest.

That the University would destroy housing and thus, in effect, create a shortage for unscrupulous landlords to exploit is both uncharitable and unforgivable. These persons are out to take the married student for all they can get and to sell their shoddy goods at the highest price the traffic will bear. For those of us who have given up a great deal in order to come to Harvard, such a coldly indifferent act on the part of the University provides slight basis for any affectionate regard toward it, now or in the future . . . Name withheld by request.