Housing Email Communications, April 5 & 6

Dear [First Name],

All of us in Housing & Residence Life apologize for the confusion surrounding yesterday's communication about your belongings in Bice, Bond, or one of the Language Houses. Please know that our ultimate goal is to protect your safety. While the proper conditions do not yet exist, we do want to reunite students with their belongings as soon as that can be done safely.

Currently, we do not know when the Governor's Executive Order in Virginia to stay at home will be lifted (this order is presently in place until June 10, 2020). When the order is lifted, we will allow students to come to Grounds at that time to pick up their belongings at no charge.

To be clear, no student is being required to pay any fees to obtain their belongings. Charges only apply if students want to either:

• pick up belongings before the on-Grounds pick up for everyone is scheduled by arranging an appointment with the third-party moving vendor, or
• have belongings shipped to them directly.

If you select one of the two options above on the survey, we will contact you later this month with additional details. If you have already submitted the survey and would like to change your selection, please contact us at housing@virginia.edu.

If critical items like prescription medications or important documents (such as passports) are among the belongings in your on-Grounds housing, we can send those to you at no charge. You can indicate items like these in the "valuables" and the "prescription medication" sections of the survey, or you can email your request to housing@virginia.edu by Thursday, April 9. We will reach out to you by email to confirm the correct mailing address, collect the item(s), and ship them to you via FedEx 2-Day Express Shipping.

The key to this situation being resolved is the end of the Governor's restrictions in Virginia and guidance from health professionals. Once this happens we will work quickly to schedule pick-ups, both for students whose belongings have been stored and for students whose belongings remain in their rooms. Retrieving items after the restrictions end can be done at no cost as long as you come to the central location we designate on Grounds. We will provide a range of dates and times for pick-up.

We hope these details help provide some clarity on our previous communication. This is a difficult time for everyone, and nothing about it is normal. Each of us is being confronted with circumstances and alternatives that are less than optimal, and not at all as we would have desired. We hope you understand that we are committed to meeting current circumstances in ways that are designed to keep you, the UVA community, and the greater Charlottesville community safe.

Sincerely,

Gay Perez
Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs,
Executive Director of Housing & Residence Life

Dear [First Name],

We hope this email finds you in good health, and that you are becoming accustomed to your virtual classes this semester. We appreciate the very real disruption the COVID-19 outbreak has brought to your college experience, with little time to prepare for or process it all. All of us in Housing & Residence Life know that this has already been a season requiring many modifications and adjustments, and we write today with information concerning your personal items that remain in on-Grounds housing.

As members of the Charlottesville/Albemarle community, we have an obligation to do what we can to assist in combating the spread of COVID-19. To this end, the University will be providing temporary housing in Bice House, Bond House, the French House, Shea House, and the Spanish House to support the COVID-19 crisis in our area. In order to prepare these spaces, we need to relocate remaining residents and resident belongings.

We understand your frustration and regret that you are not able to return to Grounds at this time to retrieve your belongings. The current evidence demonstrates that COVID-19 remains viable for days on surfaces and is transmitted through the air. Infected individuals may have no symptoms but are able to transmit the virus. As a university community, the safety of students and the Charlottesville community is our primary concern. Our strategy keeps us within the Governor’s emergency Executive Order limiting travel and ensuring social distancing in place until June 10.

We know your personal items mean a great deal to you, and we will treat them with care. Your belongings will be packed and placed in storage by our approved third-party moving vendor. The University will cover the costs to remove and store your belongings until you can retrieve them at move-out, and there will be no charge to you.

Alternatively, you may have your belongings shipped to you, if you wish. You will need to communicate directly with our shipping vendor to facilitate the shipping of your belongings. The University is not able to pay the cost of shipping (although, as noted, we are paying all costs of carefully packing and storing your personal items), so if you wish to have your items shipped, we can provide additional information that will allow you to request a quote from the vendor.

To initiate this process, we need you to complete the survey linked below [SURVEY LINKED IN ORIGINAL EMAIL] to explain where your belongings are located in your on-Grounds housing. The deadline to complete the survey is 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday, April 8. This survey will help our moving vendor to efficiently and correctly remove your belongings from your housing. The identified facilities will not be turned over for use during this crisis until all belongings are removed and the spaces thoroughly cleaned.

These continue to be challenging times, and we truly appreciate your understanding. Please know we would not require your on-Grounds residence to be repurposed if we didn't feel it to be a critical step in promoting the safety of our community. In the days and weeks ahead, please take care of yourself and one another. As before, you can stay apprised of the University's response to COVID-19 through UVA's website.

Information concerning plans for a scheduled move-out will be communicated in a future email, and we will reach out with any additional housing updates as needed. Please feel free to email housing@virginia.edu with any questions you may have, or if you need support during this time.

Sincerely,

Gay Perez
Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs,
Executive Director of Housing & Residence Life