Complex lets FAA students live rent-free
In September, David Coria of El Paso, Texas, came to Oklahoma City, joining men and women from across the country who, like himself, aspired to be air traffic controllers.
After two months of studies and training at the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center in south Oklahoma City, he and about 300 classmates were told in December that the FAA Academy was closing due to a partial government shutdown that has entered its 19th day. The students, who are Federal Aviation Administration employees, were furloughed.
“Everyone who is in the academy, like myself, has left a job, they left home, they left something in order to come here. They put everything on hold for the chance at having a better future,” Coria said.
“Now that everything is shut down, what do you go back to? You completely turned your life upside down with the hope that you are going to have that better future and there is no security.”
Students told to move
Students from as far away as Alaska and Hawaii were told to return home during the shutdown, he says. Most had no job or apartment to return to and some faced thousands of dollars in moving costs. The alternative was to stay in Oklahoma City, where they also
didn’t have a job or a way to pay rent during the shutdown.
“They just came in here looking helpless, like, ‘What am I supposed to do? We’re not going to get paid, I quit my job to try to be an air traffic controller’ and it’s horrible seeing them like that,” said Kristy Koon, general manager of Isola Bella Apartments in northwest Oklahoma City, which caters to FAA Academy students.
Koon’s solution was simple: Don’t charge rent. About 75 FAA Academy students living at Isola Bella, including Coria, were told they could live rent-free for as long as the shutdown lasts. And if they knew students living elsewhere in the city, those students could also stay at Isola Bella rentfree.
“Is this hurting our business? Absolutely, it is,” she said. “But at the same time, we have to look past that. It’s not always about business, it’s about human kindness and what’s the right thing to do. And this is the right thing to do.”
Monthly rent at Isola Bella is about $1,800 per month — which is covered by the federal government when it's not shut down — and includes breakfast and dinner buffets. Koon said it’s not known how long Isola Bella can offer free rent before the offer becomes unsustainable. She’s taking it one day at a time and hoping for an end to the shutdown.
“We’re just hoping that a resolution comes soon, so they can get back into
class and be able to pursue their dreams,” Koon said. “That’s what we’re hoping for and when that happens, that’s when we’ll be able to start making money again.”
Working without pay
About 1,150 employees at the Monroney Center are furloughed, and another 593 are working without pay across several offices. Closure of the FAA Academy has especially concerned union officials and experts at the aeronautical center because, they say, it could exacerbate what is already a nationwide shortage of air traffic controllers.
“The stakes are too high for the professional men and women who operate and oversee the safest, most efficient system airspace in the world to be subjected to a political dispute over government funding,” the National Air Traffic Controllers Association said in a recent press release video. “This shutdown must end now.”
Not far from the Monroney Center, Transportation Security Administration employees at Will Rogers World Airport are working without pay. Federal prison employees in the state are also unpaid. Downtown, an Internal Revenue Service office is closed, and its employees furloughed. At the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum, Park Service rangers are furloughed, though it remains open and free to federal employees.
“Federal employees are torchbearers for Oklahoma City’s story of courage and strength,” said Executive Director Kari Watkins in a news release
Tuesday. “We are waiving the admission fee to thank them for all they do to move our mission forward.”
At Isola Bella, Coria and other FAA Academy students watch news reports and hope to resume their studies soon. Coria is more than halfway through his training, which typically takes four months at the academy, but he can no longer expect to graduate at the end of January. So, he studies and waits for a resolution 1,300 miles away in Washington.
And he doesn’t worry about the rent.
“I don’t know, really, even how to thank them,” he says of his landlords. “I don’t have to pack up, I don’t have to move, I don’t have to do anything. I’m just waiting, without having concerns.”