I was struck by the juxtaposition of two articles in the Sept. 12 Gazette: on page 1 a story about another developer who maybe wants to build a 200-unit affordable housing project in one part of Amherst while on page 3 a story celebrating the removal of Amherst College students from campus to a newly built apartment building in the center of town.
It strikes me that if the students were to stay on campus, where they are presumably living now, the apartment complex attached to the Hastings building could be filled with people who need affordable spaces to live. And if UMass, an arm of the commonwealth government, were to build enough on-campus housing to be able to require its undergraduates to live in dorms, there would be in Amherst plenty of space to live for the people who are now being pushed out — the commonwealth could then claim all the credit for helping solve the housing crisis by several thousand persons!
Yes, we need affordable housing and yes, students need housing, but why do students need housing that working people could live in? This seems backwards to me.
Jessica Mix Barrington
Amherst