Scott Helfrich tells how he used to work in an on-campus accommodation service, and viewed privatised housing companies as the "Dark Side" of student housing.
I was one of those folks holding the flag rallying with my colleagues to prevent these Stormtroopers from outsourcing our jobs and changing the Force of good student affairs practices!
But Scott ended up making a 180-degree turn to work for an off-campus, for-profit student housing company. From his article:
MYTH #1: Privatized housing doesn’t care about students
...I am confident in saying that the company I work for is especially concerned about student safety and security and does its best to maintain an environment that’s conducive for student learning. I can’t though, however, say the same for local negligent landlords that seem to be rife in every campus town’s community...
(the full article is here)
I wonder how Scott's perspective is reflected here in Australia and NZ? Generally, we've heard good things about the bigger private-housing providers – since their business is based on meeting student needs, they seem to offer a good alternative when on-campus housing is in short supply.