All About Housing

As you prepare for life in New Haven, something that everyone wonders about is housing. Luckily, Yale has a number of resources to help students find great places. Although it seems quite early, there are plenty of people who begin looking to secure their places for the fall now. Before you delve too deeply into your search for a dream home, take a deep breath and repeat after me: I will find a great place where I can be happy, and I don’t need to find it today. Got that? Great!

No matter where you look for a place there are two things you should check out:

1. The Yale Shuttle schedule, to see if you are going to be on their regular route which can be nice sometimes, although I know plenty of students who never use it.
2. The WalkScore for the residence, based on eateries, entertainment, and transportation that is within easy walking distance of that address.

Finding Housing

First, be sure to check out the document compiled by Sean McAvoy and the Admissions office of YDS. This list consists of listings for available rooms and sublets from current YDS students. Many of these apartments come complete with excellent roommates, while others might be totally empty and ready to be stamped with your mark. If you are interested in one of these places you should contact the individual who posted the specific residence so that they can follow-up with more information, pictures, etc.

The Yale graduate student housing website is another great resource, and they are relatively thorough when it comes to listings for students. We assume that most of you will be looking for off-campus housing at this point, but feel free to peruse the dormitories listings in case there is anything available. Usually Yale campus housing gets settled over the course of the summer, but most students interested in campus housing will have already submitted your preferences to the housing office. From the off-campus housing website you can search listings for all over New Haven. Some of these are run by private companies, but many are listed by individuals, either students, affiliates, or just locals who like to list with Yale housing because they like Yale tenants. There’s a lot to look through and apartments tend to be added throughout the spring and summer. They come in waves so don’t be discouraged if you don’t see something today.

You will probably stumble upon Elm Campus Partners while you are looking through Yale’s housing options, but they are a bit different so we’re going to mention them separately. Plus, Esther lives in an ECP residence. ECP is a local property management company that manages properties owned by Yale University. This properties are only available to Yale students and affiliates, they tend to have relatively cheap rent, and they have excellent customer service. They have a system similar to Yale housing where they will ask you to submit a form of preferences and then they will let you know when units matching your criteria become available, and then it’s first come, first served in terms of securing an apartment. They are very accommodating for students who are out of town and aren’t necessarily able to come visit different places, and they sent Esther floorplans of the house before she decided to rent.

Craigslist: An apartment-hunting classic. Craigslist is a wonderful resource and one you should definitely use, especially if you don’t see anything you like listed on the Yale housing website, because you’ll be casting a much wider net. There are a number of Yale students and affiliates who advertise for new roommates here as well, but this is where you will find the most non-Yale landlords and tenants. This is the option Patrick chose. Many of the land-people in neighborhoods around the Div School (see below) know and have experience with renting to Div students, and we tend to have very good reputations as tenants. Patrick (who lived close-ish) paired up with his roommate (who lived far away), and did tours of places for the two of them. To reiterate: these listings come and go throughout the summer, and lots of places won't come up until late May and June, or even as late as July at some points. Don't panic! There are an abundance of options and you will find somewhere.


Neighborhoods

While searching through these listings, you will inevitably have some questions about different neighborhoods in New Haven. The most popular neighborhood for Yale graduate students, and Div students in particular, is East Rock, named for its proximity to East Rock Park. This area tends to have decent rent prices, is within reasonable walking distance (1-1.5 miles) to campus, and has some great cafes. If you live Downtown (including Wooster Square) you will be much closer to Yale University’s main campus, the New Haven green, lots of restaurants, shops, and bars. If you live on Mansfield, you will be just west of the YDS campus and within easy walking distance.

If you plan to bring a car and foresee yourself driving to school every day then you shouldn’t feel limited to New Haven. Hamden is a great town, too!  


Roommates

The last big issue that we want to address is roommates. Many of you will be looking for places but will undoubtedly feel as though it is financially in your best interest to live with others, but where to find them? There is no surefire way to guarantee you will end up with someone you absolutely love living with, but looking for people seeking roommates on Craigslist or the Yale grad housing website is a good place to start. If you are interested in living with other students from YDS specifically, definitely post something on the Facebook group wall - that is how Esther and Patrick both found their roommates. We have noticed that several of you have already begun organizing yourselves into groups of potential roommies, and that’s great! Keep up the good work. We will also continue to occasionally draw your attention to current students who are either seeking roommates, or trying help their landlord fill an apartment.


And to repeat: I will find a great place where I can be happy, and I don’t need to find it today.


In peace,
Esther and Patrick