Move-in postponed for hundreds of UC Santa Cruz students

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (KION) Officials at UC Santa Cruz say that because of the state of the COVID-19 pandemic locally and statewide, they have decided to postpone move-in for residential students.

Move-in was originally scheduled for this coming Saturday, but the university said it has reassessed its plans. About 620 students are affected by the change.

"After assessing the continuing surge in COVID-19 cases further exacerbated by the recent winter holidays, the lengthening public health restrictions for our region, and the impact of a greater number of on-campus residents on our ability to effectively deliver medical services on the campus, we are unfortunately not able to have you live on campus at this time. Additionally, we ask that you not seek housing in the local off-campus community because the extremely limited rental capacity has resulted in households with multiple students, heightening the risk of the spread of the virus," the university said in a message to students shared with KION.

University officials said applications will remain active and a new housing assignment will be offered when move-in is rescheduled. Until then, they said reserved housing assignments will be "administratively cancelled" and winter housing charges will be removed from university accounts.

In the future, university officials said they will use a "rolling" move-in approach, but did not go into detail about what that might look like. They said they hope that students will be able to come to campus in late-winter or early spring.