The communities around both of USC’s Los Angeles-based campuses have been fighting for their right to live in peace for decades. Both the University Park Campus and Health Science Campus are situated in historically Black and Latine neighborhoods. These communities have been deeply affected by the presence of USC in their locality. Especially as USC continues to expand its campuses — disregarding the needs of community members in the process.

Housing rights are at the center of this battle. While this issue was always something that I kept in mind, it was really brought to the forefront of my attention last spring.

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On April 17, a variety of tenant’s rights organizations organized a protest that ended in front of Doheny Memorial Library. In attendance were representatives from Service Employees International Union, Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment Action, Legacy LA, InnerCity Struggle and Eastside Leadership for Equitable and Accountable Developmental Strategies. These protestors called for the end to the displacement of community members by USC campus expansions and corporations buying housing to rent to USC students. 

The lack of affordable housing for University Park residents is reflected in its rent burden, with 63.08% of the renters experiencing it as of 2022, according to statistics published by Neighborhood Data for Social Change.  Rent burden is defined as a household spending more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities. 

A study published by the Price Center for Social Innovation found that two-thirds of rent-burdened households have cut back on food expenses, half deferred bill payments and/or taken on more debt and one-fifth have gone without medicine or seeing a doctor. These coping mechanisms often last for more than five years, which can have permanent negative mental and physical effects on rent-burdened individuals. These long-term effects of rent burden can keep households and families in a vicious cycle of poverty and eviction. 

The neighborhoods of the Health Sciences Campus don’t fare much better, with Lincoln Heights having a rent burden of 56.21% as of 2022, according to statistics published by Neighborhood Data for Social Change. Beyond the rent burden faced by the neighbors of University Park Campus, the residents of the 14th Council district are evicted more than any other district. From February to December 2023, more than 10,000 eviction notices were handed out in the district. There were also over 300 unhoused people who died in the district in 2022, more than any other district. 

Even though USC claims to try to keep community members and organizers involved in discussions regarding USC expansion, they are still leaving behind the communities around its campuses. USC could better support its community members by using its leverage to help support rent control proposals and the rezoning of developments to support low-income multi-family homes. 

The communities around USC are affected not only by the University’s expansions into the neighborhoods it inhabits but also by the housing corporations that follow college students. Some rental services are largely inaccessible to community members because of the way they rent properties. Instead of renting entire houses at once, as a family would do, corporations such as Tripalink — a popular leasing company among students — often rent individual rooms within a property. 

This individual room rental model makes it nearly impossible for families to rent from properties owned by companies like Tripalink. Since these companies often rent individual rooms, the properties usually have a larger number of bedrooms, with upwards of eight bedrooms in one property. With most households in South Central containing four people, paying for eight bedrooms is impractical and oftentimes impossible for families to afford. 

Instead of allowing corporations that are not run by South Central community members to dominate the landlord title, we as students, should join together with community members to fight for more accessible housing. To better support the local community, students should try to rent from local community members, join community protests in support of rent control and other rent protections, and pressure USC to center the communities in all of its expansion plans. As visitors to these two beautiful neighborhoods, it is our duty to leave the communities better than we found them, not through gentrification but instead through repatriation. Communities should always come first, and USC needs to do more to use its sway to prioritize and protect the ability of its neighbors to live in their neighborhoods.