UBC frathouses evict students to cash in on Vancouver Olympics

By John Bermingham, The Province/Canwest News Service, December 30, 2009
http://www.theprovince.com/frathouses+evict+students+cash+Vancouver+Olym...
VANCOUVER — More than 200 students at the University of British Columbia are being forced out of their rooms by their own fraternities — which have decided to cash in by renting out to 2010 Games visitors.
Fraternity Village, which hosts eight frat houses, sits just 200 metres from UBC’s Thunderbird Arena, one of the Olympic hockey and sledge-hockey venues.
The area will be behind security barriers, with roads closed and access to the houses tightened.
Stefanie Ratjen, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association’s Olympic preparedness director, said she has been told that five of the eight fraternities are working through a real-estate agency to market their rooms.
At Psi Upsilon, 30 fraternity members who pay $730 for monthly room and board have been ordered to leave their rooms. All possessions must be removed before the rooms are rented out.
Psi Upsilon house manager Aaron Thomson refused to say how much the group is making from its rentals.
He told The Vancouver Province the money would go toward a scholarship fund, to pay for repairs and maintenance work, and to top up the fraternity’s contingency fund.
“We have this great opportunity where we can fix the house and get all this money,” Thomson said Wednesday. “It is, of course, difficult for most people to have to leave for a month.”
Thomson said frat members didn’t have a choice in the matter and no vote was held, but he said the majority favoured the plan.
Only two members have yet to find alternate housing for February, he said.
Phi Delta Theta president Azim Wazeer said no decision has been made on how to use the group’s rental windfall from the 21 rooms it will lease out.
“We are doing what’s best for the fraternity,” Wazeer said. “Everybody is on board.”
University spokesman Scott Macrae said the decision to rent the rooms was made by the fraternities.
“Some of them have chosen the Olympic time to make some money on accommodation,” he said, adding that members have known since the beginning of the fall term that they would have to relocate.
UBC is not renting out rooms in any of its student residences for the Olympics, Macrae said, and dorm residents near Thunderbird Arena are banned from subletting their rooms during the games. Any who do rent may be evicted, he added.
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