Tyson Pope, 34
Pope, who grew up in Southern California, is in his final semester as an undergraduate at UC Berkeley. A transfer student from Riverside City College, Pope is dyslexic — a condition that influenced his long path to a bachelor’s degree.
It’s also a condition that’s complicated his quest for housing he could afford in Berkeley.
As a transfer student, Pope was able to live in campus housing at first. (All new students at UC Berkeley are given priority status for on-campus housing.) Once his priority status was over, he didn’t win the continuing student lottery for on-campus housing. He tried the Berkeley Co-op, but his learning disability means that he needs a quiet space in which to concentrate.
“The environment wasn’t good for me,” Pope said. “It was clear that my grades were going to suffer.”
After repeated appeals to the campus housing office failed to turn up a room for him, Pope started looking for off-campus housing.
UC Berkeley doesn’t give priority in its housing lottery to continuing students, even if they’re disabled. Spokesman Adam Ratliff said the shortage of student housing “is a major concern for the university.”
The Berkeley market was, to put it mildly, a shock.
“The university’s rental listing service had all of these units that were $4,000 or $5,000 a month,” Pope said. “The only relatively affordable rooms I could find were in the parts of Oakland or Richmond that were nowhere near public transportation, and I don’t have a car.”
The situation got so stressful, Pope said, that he contemplated not coming back to campus at all.
“I was doing research about whether there was some way for me to finish through Berkeley’s extension program,” Pope said. “I just didn’t see a way to live there long enough to finish my degree.”
Finally, he found a room for $1,500, on the south side of Berkeley. It’s more than he can afford. He’s taken out another student loan, and his family has scrambled to come up with extra money to help him.
He’ll graduate in December. He intends to study for a master’s degree in education, so he can help other students with learning disabilities, but first he needs to work. He’s already thought about the kinds of jobs he’ll apply for — all of them, he said, far away from the Bay Area.
“The housing situation here definitely impacted my future plans,” Pope said.