As of August 2018, Carolina Housing's occupancy rate was at 99.7 percent, which has some wondering if it will be harder to get a room reassignment as the year goes on.
According to Carolina Housing’s strategic plan, since the 2012-2013 academic year, Carolina Housing has not passed an occupancy rate of 97.5 percent.
Allan Blattner, director of Housing & Residential Education, was aware of the high occupancy rate before the academic year began. Blattner said he told RAs during resident adviser training that mediation between roommates needed to be prioritized in the coming year.
“I encouraged them that they’re really going to need to double down on their efforts to try and help people have an effective roommate relationship,” he said.
Joshua Pontillo, a junior RA in Carmichael Residence Hall, said he was told of the high occupancy rate during training, but it was not portrayed as a major problem.
“They kind of made it into a positive,” he said. “They did bring up the issue that it might bring some ordeals up, but they were kind of good problems as opposed to a bad problem, which would be like not having enough students — it’s kind of like a happy thing, or at least that’s the way it seemed presented to me.”
Blattner said Housing would rather have a high occupancy than have empty rooms.
“It is our goal always to house and be as full as we can because that means we’re making housing available to the most number of students we can,” he said.
Pontillo said he has felt a change in attitude from recent years toward room reassignments. He described two instances in which he felt his supervisors chose to prioritize reassignments for residents with more serious issues over those who preferred a roommate change for less pressing reasons.