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University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin unveiled an unconventional plan to combat the current student housing shortage — sending excess students, mainly freshmen, to several of Madison’s vibrant and historic homeless shelters — at a press conference yesterday afternoon.
“While many of our greatest students are able to find housing at this hallowed institution's many dormitories, or perhaps get a $4,500 apartment at The Hub, or Theory Madison, some of our less fortunate students have been complaining non-stop about not being able to find ‘affordable housing.’ Well, after our team sifted and winnowed through many ideas, like cutting our football budget since the team, and more importantly the coach, sucks, or having one less movie theater or even having to cut funding to our student government I know all 1.5% of you who voted in their last election care so much about, we landed on the homeless shelter plan.” Mnookin said at the press conference.
Over the course of the three hour conference, she flipped through a 478 slide Power Point presentation on the plan, going deeper into the details of it all.
“For all freshmen who don’t make the cut for staying in a university dorm their first year of schooling, they will be asked to rank their top three favorite homeless shelters in the city, being able to pick from over five exotic locations, then be assigned to one based on their preferences and more importantly a random lottery. They will also be given the generous option to pay an additional $5,000 fee for a recommissioned city bus to shuttle them to and from campus, which will be on a subscription based payment system,” Mnookin said while shining a laser pointer through the window of her office and into the eyes of a student protestor.
University professors and their children have praised the decision for its “adaptability” at combatting the “affordability crisis,” with quantitative weather mathematics Professor Daniel Coastaleliteson being the most vocal with his support.
“What the Chancellor is doing is truly special. I mean, who else could think of sending all of those people to homeless shelters?” Coastaleliteson told The Daily Cardinal.
“I agree a lot with my dad. Housing is just such an issue for so many people, so it’s great to see that the chancellor finally found a place for them to live,” said Robert Coastaleliteson, Daniel Coastaleliteson’s son and UW-Madison sophomore currently staying in a four bedroom penthouse apartment at The Overprice, a new set of student apartments built last summer over the ruins of beloved historic city landmark and restaurant, The Nostalgian.
While some students have offered praise, others have condemned the decision. Popular student newspaper The Madison Federalist released a statement from their editorial board calling Mnookin’s plan “abhorrent” since it would only make the homeless shelters, which they called “non-binary woke machines built to destroy the poor's incentive to work,” more popular among the youth.
Their statement ended by calling university bus passes “DEI,” said that Bascom Hall should be renamed in honor of Dick Cheney, may he rest in peace, and included twelve different Ayn Rand quotes about the dangers of altruism.
Lesser known student newspaper The Badger Herald also released a statement from their editorial board. However, because of its broad misinformation, confusing prose, clear bias, obvious irrelevance and general journalistic malpractice, I won’t bore you with its details.
Mnookin’s housing plan is set to begin the fall semester of 2029, but students will need to enroll in the program spring semester of 2026 if they want to take part in it.
Dominic Violante is The Beet editor for The Daily Cardinal.
