Storage Solutions

While free of charge, the summer storage provided by the Houses has until now been egregiously inadequate. The designated storage spaces in House basements, attics and common rooms are too small to accommodate student need. Last summer, the College received a citation from the Cambridge Fire Department for unlawfully using hallways for storage purposes. Besides space constraints, the College’s storage options are hampered by theft as well—some students discovered upon returning last fall that their uninsured possessions had been stolen from House storage areas.

Harvard Student Agencies (HSA) has generated a much-needed solution to the storage by offering to store boxes in facilities of its own over the summer. At $15 to $26 per item, its prices are the most competitive in the Boston area and will take some of the pressure off of the College’s overloaded free storage alternatives. HSA and those who helped develop this project should be praised. The HSA plan will also bring other improvements to summer storage, including insurance for up to $300 per item at no additional cost and a convenient free delivery service that will spare rising sophomores the hardship of moving large boxes from the Yard to the more distant Houses.

But while HSA’s initiative is a great triumph for summer storage, it also highlights the College’s insufficient effort at providing reliable and safe alternatives for summer storage. After last year’s debacle, Faculty of Arts and Sciences officials contemplated restricting storage privileges to students living at least 200 miles away. But rather than shifting an extra burden on students, HSA is providing an alternative solution that benefits all students. The College can help encourage this alternative and inject fairness into the business-run storage system by allocating funds for storage financial aid—helping interested but less-affluent students pay for this vital storage alternative. The money could be apportioned on the basis of both financial status and distance of permanent residence from Cambridge. The College already uses geographic criteria to award similarly small amounts of aid to students from warmer climates who need to buy winter jackets for use while at Harvard.

Subsidizing HSA’s storage service would not only be helpful to students with modest family incomes, but would also benefit the student body as a whole. The greater the number of students who are given the opportunity to use the safer, more convenient option offered by HSA, the more the stuffing of House storage spaces will be alleviated. As a result, fire hazards such as the one that attracted the fire department’s attention last year could be averted. Furthermore, with fewer items to keep track of in the Houses, it would be possible to prevent theft more efficiently. The reduced storage load would be the perfect occasion to enhance the storage retrieval proof system.

HSA has admirably taken the first step toward establishing a decent summer storage system for Harvard students. The College must follow through by funding the use of the HSA service by students who require financial aid. Not only will the College thereby make higher-quality storage available to students of all means, it will also be able to provide more adequate storage in the Houses.