NIU students looking to live off-campus can get suggestions and legal advice from the newly revived Student Tenant Union.

The purpose of the tenant union meeting was to let the students know what the Student Association is trying to do for the students who did not have anywhere else to go for support when they had problems with off campus housing.

They also want to give students information on what they can use before signing a lease.

Eric Grice, SA Community Affairs adviser, wants to inform students of issues pertaining to renting off-campus housing in DeKalb.

Brad Strauss, 6th ward alderman, Jordan Kagan, 7th ward alderman, Amy Polzin, 1st Ward alderman, Don Henderson, director of Student Legal Services and Rick Monas, director of Building and Community Services department, were all present to speak to the group about what each of their departments could do.

Robbie Arrington, general manager of Mason Properties, also spoke to the group about what the position of the landlords could be if the tenants were to have any problems.

Strauss said the main problem tenants have when renting housing is the disputes with the landlord. He said there are just as many bad landlords as there are good landlords and the same concept pertains to tenants. The main focus was on communication with both groups.

“We want to create a way for students to have an educated view of everything about apartments and leasing,” Strauss said.

Another way to help the tenant union is to keep a record of all of the complaints and the compliments, he said.

Some of the suggestions the aldermen had for tenants were communicating with landlords into writing, keeping a copy of all communication for themselves, giving the landlord a chance to reply to the complaint and educating all the tenants of the policies of the lease.

Two of Strauss’ suggestions for improving the relations between the tenants and the managers were an interest charge on security deposits after a year, and notification of tenants at least two days before entering into an apartment, unless in an emergency.

Kagan also said the tenants’ rights need to be met, and they should have access to the landlord or manager 24 hours a day.

Henderson said one of the biggest problems students have when they enter into a lease is roommates.

“There is an inherent uncertainty of relying on other people who aren’t related to you. There is a roommate agreement which informs everyone of the laws. This will prevent a lot of headaches,” he said.

Henderson also said the tenants need to record all the damage of the apartment before they move into it. That way they know how the apartment should look when they leave it, and what part of their security deposit they are entitled to.

Grice said the meeting was a good start for the organization. The first meetings of a new organization are usually small and when the word gets out about the tenant union, there will be more people attending.

He said the organization will try to get procedural changes with the landlords and they want to make managers more aware of the problems they may be causing and not know it.

Grice also wants to get a full-time staff member to work for the organization to keep the continuity of the group.