UCLA, residents dispute housing contract

Published: Monday, August 18, 1997

Monday, August 18, 1997

HOUSING:

University backs out of sorority lease, but only after 22 students had vacatedBy Michelle Navarro

Daily Bruin Contributor

Tina O'Brien felt that she deserved a good pat on the back. She went out early to search for a place to call home for her first year at UCLA. O'Brien was set to move into the Alpha Chi sorority house at 824 Hilgard Ave. for fall quarter, or so she thought.

"Connie (the house manager for the Hilgard residence) called me up and said that they wouldn't be honoring our contracts," said O'Brien, a third-year transfer student.

Her story is not unlike that of the many other transfer and exchange students that chose to stay at the Alpha Chi, Delta Zeta's local chapter house this summer. Each of the students were affected by a housing nightmare involving Delta Zeta's national headquarters and UCLA.

Without the knowledge that contracts had already been made for the fall, UCLA signed a five-year lease with Delta Zeta to provide housing for incoming students. So the sorority told all 28 current occupants to leave. Although UCLA terminated the lease after being notified by O'Brien's lawyer, by that time, most of the girls had already found other housing.

"On the 21st of July, we were told that we had to vacate the house by August 31," said Connie La Chonce, house manager of the Hilgard residence. "The girls were just heartsick about the whole thing. Legally, the girls are in the right. The law states that if you have a legal binding contract, it must be honored. They (UCLA) were going to ignore them."

According to the national Delta Zeta headquarters in Ohio, the UCLA chapter has not been active since 1991. However the house has been used as a type of boarding house for mainly female transfer and foreign-exchange students.

Earlier this summer, UCLA considered leasing the house, as well as 638 Hilgard another sorority residence in order to accommodate the growing number of students attending the university.

"Two years ago, the university decided to lease about four sorority houses. Each houses about 35 students," said Brad Erickson, a member of the real estate team for UCLA.

"Sororities that are no longer active offer (the houses) temporarily until we build more housing. This last year the housing office asked us to get two more," he said.

According to La Chonce, many of the girls currently staying at the house are foreign-exchange students from Europe, Asia and Australia, and didn't know how to legally handle the situation. As a result, many of them began searching for housing elsewhere.

"It would be pretty uncomfortable for them to press charges they may not know how. So, the girls went out trying to find other housing," La Chonce said. "One of the American girls got an attorney and decided to fight it. This one knew enough about the law to do something about it."

The "American girl" was Tina O'Brien.

"I talked to an attorney and he said the lease was legitimate," O'Brien said.

After talking with both the houses, Erickson said 638 Hilgard had "already made commitments and didn't want to disrupt them."

All negotiations for the 824 Hilgard residence had to be done with the Delta Zeta national headquarters, rather than with local officials, Erickson said.

"They told us 824 had summer tenants that would be out for the Fall," explained Erickson, adding that they continued to make plans to lease the house as of September.

In reality, those tenants, like O'Brien, had signed contracts that either began or extended beyond the end of August.

After talking with her lawyer, O'Brien said that "he wrote some letters and talked with the head of real estate for Delta Zeta, who said (Delta Zeta) couldn't honor the leases and that they were working with UCLA to find other housing."

"I had a place to live. I had a double room because I had one roommate and now, I was on a waiting list for a quad," she said, adding that when she heard the news she thought, "This can't happen. I have a contract. They just can't call me and say we've leased your house just because they got a better offer. All this happened and I hadn't even gone to my first class yet."

Erickson said that within two days of the signing, the national chapter notified UCLA that these separate contracts had been made prior to the agreement made between UCLA and national headquarters. Upon hearing the news Erickson said UCLA "wanted to terminate the lease."

"When we signed, they said it was vacant. It wasn't, so we considered our lease void," Erickson said. "Our general goal was to provide housing for students. We want to provide housing, not replace. No one told us anything. It was a case of the left hand corporate not knowing what the right hand the local office was doing. It was bad communication on their part," said Erickson.

After hearing that her contract would be honored after all, O'Brien was somewhat relieved, "It was nice to hear that the school terminated the lease."

La Chonce, on the other hand, remains skeptical as to whether or not UCLA knew of the contracts. "It's pretty difficult for me to believe, (UCLA had no knowledge) and now they're blaming it on national headquarters," La Chonce said, "Don't you think UCLA would've tried to find out if there were people there? I had rosters for how many contracts there were for the fall."

When the contract with UCLA was terminated, the girls were told they could remain in the house. Unfortunately, that isn't the end of the problems that were created from what La Chonce called a "really monumental mess."

Several of the girls have already paid deposits for other housing. La Chonce said that initially the house had about 28 girls, but now six or seven remain.

"Some are still trying to get their deposits back. The unfortunate part of this is that I think I have every Asian country represented, as well as girls from other countries," she said, "we talk so much about democracy, and for some of these girls this is their first time here and already, UCLA is doing this to them. It's just a sad thing."

Erickson insists that UCLA was in the dark about the situation and never had any plan to disrupt any current contracts at the house.

"We assumed they weren't housing any students for the Fall, that's the premise on which we went forward. Apparently the local people were never got ahold of," Erickson said, "Some students have been affected that was never our intent."

O'Brien was one of those "affected" students, but although she said her new life as a UCLA bruin got off to a "rocky start," she did learn something.

"The law really works," O'Brien said. "Don't let anyone push you around."

PATRICK LAM/Daily Bruin

House manager Connie La Chonce feels the victory is bittersweet for her tenants, most of whom are international students.