Many students at UCR, both incoming and continuing students, have already signed and submitted their housing contracts as well as payed any fees that came with it, along with this, many students, such as myself, have also already chosen their room/apartment. With the recent announcement that fall will be online, housing has informed us that we will be allowed to cancel our contracts and will be refunded any prepaid housing fees, however, if we choose to cancel our contract it will be canceled for the entire 2020-2021 school year not just fall quarter. This is not fair.

I strongly believe students should be given the option to cancel their contract for the fall quarter only and still have their "spot in line" for housing reserved, this option should especially be made available to those who have already chosen their rooms/renewed their apartment contract. Since it is quite probable that we will be back on campus for the winter and spring quarter it is incredibly unfair and outright ridiculous, especially in these troubling times, to make us choose between wasting money and paying for fall housing in order to have winter/spring secured or completely canceling our contract for the school year leading many students to stress and wonder if they'll have anywhere to go and live if winter/spring are in-person.

We are aware that we have the option to reapply before the start of winter quarter, however, this  puts many students, especially those who applied incredibly early, some as early as week 9 of the previous winter quarter, at an extreme disadvantage with trying to secure housing which many of us were promised and signed up for as early as March. 

We know the pandemic took us all by surprise and UCR is taking things day-by-day, which is completely understandable. So all we ask is that housing also takes it day-by-day and instead of jumping the gun and cancelling our contracts for the entire year, give students the option to cancel their contracts on a quarter-quarter basis.