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Brandon Boever
House File 161
University of Northern Iowa

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Picture having eight best friends in college and plan to live with all of them after
freshman or sophomore year of college, then all of a sudden a file is passed that makes this task
impossible. According to The Daily Iowan (2015), “The Iowa House approved House File 161
earlier this week, which would ban the number of unrelated tenants living together in rentals of
college towns” (Pateras). This file being passed is an outrageous act against college students
and landlords of the houses being rented out around college campuses. It puts huge pressure
on college students that were planning to live with eight friends that now have to narrow it
down to four friends without making their other friends mad at them. This policy needs to be
changed to how it originally was for the better of colleges, students and landlords of houses
around campus. The research found for this paper has many pros and cons to this house file
that got passed in Iowa, but has way more cons than pros. With that being said, with this file
being approved the cost of living will start to become unaffordable to college students living off
campus, and can cause a scarcity of on campus living with less students having to pay more
living off campus.
Imagine sharing rent with six to eight students in a house, and then having to share the
same rent with three other people. The landowner would have to make the same amount of
money he/she was earlier so students would get a larger rent to pay each month then when
they had more renters in the house. This may not be true for every event, such as houses or
apartments that originally had four or less people staying in it. According to Pateras (2015), one
city Representative quoted in The Daily Iowan, “We talk about student loan debt down here
and how much college costs for students, and then we turn around and limit their housing
options because they’re not related to each other”. Then he stated “I just think that college

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students should be outraged that cities are doing this.” The file being passed would cause a
huge impact on a college student debt by having to supposedly pay more for houses now that
they are making less people live together. The city Representative is basically warning people
by if the file is passed, students who live off campus will have to pay more for housing (Pateras,
2015).
When interviewing a current off campus resident, Dimitri Metropulos, who currently
lives with eight residents in the same house. He said that file 161 is really going to affect the
price of rent at the house he is currently living. The price of rent for the house didn’t double but
it did go up significantly. With that being a problem he decided to find some of his closest
friends and find a house with them so he could save some money on his off campus living and
use more of it towards his tuition. He explained that it was a difficult task to figure out who he
was going to live with next year without hurting someone’s feelings. He had lived with all of his
housemates for a whole year and grew to love them equally throughout the time living
together, which made it hard for him just to choose three instead of the eight he had currently
been living with.
In addition to the file that has been passed there was a similar one passed in Greenburg,
Pennsylvania which didn’t go as well as they planned. According to Stiles (2008), after many
years of the file failing at Seton Hill University, staff members started to say it should be
changed back to how it originally was, and should have never been touch. Maren Masur, a
teacher at Seton Hill states that “It’s becoming a problem obviously, because there are only so
many houses, and Seton Hill cannot guarantee housing to everyone but freshman” (Stiles

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2008). If this file has already affected one college, how do you think it will affect all the Iowa
colleges?
The University of Northern Iowa tries to persuade incoming freshman to get the two-
year advantage plan, but The University of Northern Iowa will end up only having enough room
for freshman on campus if the file is passed, and the rest of the students will lose that
opportunity. How could Iowa Representatives pass this file that takes away the opportunity of
non-freshman to live on campus again and also make them pay more if they lived off campus?
On the contrary, there are some Iowa Representatives that believe students will gain
money from making this file. In the Daily Iowan the writer, Grace Pateras, says, “Student buyers
and renters could potentially save money by splitting housing between seller and renter and
utility costs if the bill passes and more are allowed to live in one unit together”(Pateras). Which
is the complete opposite of how other Representatives and many more see it. They believe that
taking more people out of a house would make the cost of living more expensive. Taking more
college students out a living space together could really help the living conditions in the house
which could make it less expensive for the landowner, but no one knows if the houses will
become more sanitary if they take out more residence. There are many reasons on why rent
could also be cheaper from the opposition’s side, but none that could considerably make the
prices fall for the renters.
If prices were to raise for the rent of house around campus, it could end up causing a
scarcity of places to live on campus. At the University of Northern Iowa, they currently have
12,159 students enrolled and only 4626 units of living on campus. If they were to consistently

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have more students enrolling at UNI it would slowly start to take more and more rooms away
from upper classmen. In the text by Willis (2008), David Gnage quoted in the article titled, On-
campus Rooms Can Get Scarce, “Every year we’ve had more students enrolled than we have
space for in the residence halls.” At the university they have limited housing on campus for
every student including freshmen, so they have to offer off campus living that is not as
expensive for them just like they were living on campus. They do say that they want to have
freshman living on campus to get the experience and meet new people, but have no campus
housing project in order to make it possible for all freshman to live on campus. This causes
more and more students to have to find off campus houses every year and expands where all
the college students are living (Willis, 2008).
Mostly every student in college wants to live off campus as soon as possible but there is
a slimfew that would like to live on campus if they can. The author Stiles (2008) discovered
some students believe that living on campus would benefit them in the long run. In the article,
More College Students Opt to Stay on Campus, states a lot of different reasons of why students
like to live on campus. “I figure it’s more convenient to live on campus,” said Scholl, a
sophomore. There are many reasons to why we should live on campus so why should we even
complain about the file that is about living off campus (Stiles, 2008).
Not to mention, if any of the University in the state of Iowa were to ever have a scarcity
of on campus living they could always invest in more housing for students that would like to live
on campus and meet new people. This is a fantastic idea for Universities that ever happen to
fall into a pickle of having less housing on campus than needed. In the Oklahoman after years of
not being able to house everyone that wanted to live on campus they decided to take action.

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According to Slipke (2010), “Oklahoma City University plans to open another campus housing
building with 252 beds in 2011” (p. 19a). There are always options and ways to get through not
having enough living on campus, but never a way to keep more than four people living together
off campus with a file being passes by the Iowa House of Representatives.
On the other hand, if we happen to get to a point on which we were “too late” signing
up to live on campus and couldn’t find a place to live off campus either what would happen?
Researching found something that is mind blowing for not just college students to hear but
people of all ages. According to Erwin (2010), at Pennsylvania State Behrend University a lot a
students ended up being “too late” requesting to live on campus and ended up living in a hotel
for some or most of the year. Hotel officials at the Days Inn quoted that “about 24 students
were staying at the hotel at the beginning of the semester in August” (Erwin, 2010). Now
knowing that passing this file could end up causing college students to live in a hotel for a
semester or even longer, why would it still be up for debate? The housing file 161 needs to be
dropped to help the students in more causes then you think it will.
In conclusion, house file 161 will turn out to be a huge catastrophe if it not taken care
off. The research shows how it will have more side effects then what the Iowa Representatives
think. The examination of a variety of articles of other Universities that have went through the
same situation should be what causes this file to go back to original format. The effects of the
file being passed are not worth it for the Universities and the state of Iowa. The research
indicates that file 161 being approved will cause the cost of living to become unaffordable to
college students living off campus, and can cause a scarcity of on campus living with less
students having to pay more living off campus. How would you feel if you had five best friends

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and you were the one having to live with strangers you haven’t ever met, because with the file
being passed you don’t know what could happen.

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Erwin,E. (2008, September26).The Inn Crowd:StudentsStayat Hotel Due to CampusHousingCrunch.
Erie Times-News.
Pateras,G., & Vujicic, A.(2015, March 13). Bill Aimstoeliminate restrictionsonunrelatedtenants.The
DailyIowan.RetrievedMarch21, 2015, from
http://www.dailyiowan.com/2015/03/13/Metro/41382.html
Slipke, D.(2010, July18). UniversityHousingDemandIncreases.The Oklahoman,p.19A.
Stiles,B.(2008, February20). Greensburg'sOff-campusHousingLaw Challenged.Tribune-Review.
Stiles,B.(2008, September23).More College StudentsOpttoStay onCampus. Tribune-Review.
Willis,N.(2008, February7). On-campusRoomsCanGet Scarce.ChambersburgPublicOpinion.