77 Students Displaced in Force Majeure
Watson Jones & Quinn Bonney | January 26, 2023
Harley Woods
Rae Milstead perches on toilet amidst damage to Villages suite.
77 Villages residents have been relocated after the fire suppression system in Village A broke on Dec. 24, causing a pipe to burst. This resulted in flooding in Village A and damage to the sprinkler system in Village B. The students in the dorms at the time were immediately moved to Shepard.
About 30 Villages residents have moved to Blue Ridge Assembly (BRA), 15 minutes away from campus down Highway 70. The rest of the affected residents were moved into the remaining dorm spaces on campus or located housing themselves off campus.
Warren Wilson College (WWC) created a shuttle plan to pick up students from BRA in the morning and return them in the evening.
While BRA does allow service animals, they do not allow emotional support animals (ESAs), because they do not follow the same Fair Housing Act policy that WWC does. The school has stated that people who obtained medical singles in Villages will be given medical singles at BRA — unless they own an ESA.
Ande-Rose Barnhart, a former Villages resident, was present in Village A when the pipes for the fire suppression system burst, sending a sheet of water pouring down from the second floor next to the laundry room.
“From my understanding, people are getting placed maybe not in the best living situations to fit all of their needs,” Barnhart said. “But it seems like they're finding ways to squeeze people together.”
Barnhart has both an ESA and paperwork for a medical single. They said that during the relocation process, the school was unable to provide housing accommodations that fit their requirements. They have since relocated off campus.
“I have no plans to go back to campus because they can't accommodate me,” Barnhart said. “And I haven't heard back yet about a refund and an exemption.”
Barnhart said that this move to off-campus residence has brought further financial complications due to the requirements of the NC Free tuition scholarship they receive.
“That's been the hang up — the fine print of that [scholarship] makes students live on campus to pay room and board.”
Harley Woods, another Village A resident displaced by the pipe failure, is a creative writing major in their last semester at WWC.
“I was supposed to be sitting in on lectures at the graduate writing residency as an undergrad, and I couldn't focus on almost any of the classes because I had the situation hanging over my head, thinking, ‘I might be homeless by Sunday,’” Woods said.
Like Barnhart, Woods has approved paperwork for a medical single, and an ESA. This meant that — like some other students — they were unable to relocate to BRA.
“I was really stressed that I was going to be homeless because I didn't have savings,” Woods said. “It's so difficult for people at Warren Wilson to get a job while they're at Warren Wilson, because of everything that we have to do.”
Woods started a new job Jan. 16 to begin saving up money for a security deposit on housing after they graduate at the end of this semester but said that the sudden change in living arrangement increased this financial stress.
Woods noted that financial background made a big difference in the ways that the unexpected move affected students. Ultimately, Woods was relocated from their four-person suite with a medical single to a suite with eight people — now with a roommate.
“[My medical single paperwork] was approved,” Woods said. “They said, ‘if you need to move, you'll have a medical single.’ They denied my request after I had already had my paperwork approved.”
For some senior-year students close to graduation like Woods, WWC’s lack of housing that fits their needs presents a frustrating dilemma:
“I'm stuck here, it's my last semester.” Woods said. “It wouldn't be worth it to drop out or go anywhere else.”
WWC has assured students they are doing everything they can to accommodate students' needs, as for Villages B residence, they are predicted to move back in sometime in March.