Some WashU students have had difficult getting housing accommodations, leaving a backlog that has left some students behind (Alyssa Wang | Contributing Photographer)

This past fall, some WashU students have faced challenges while attempting to receive housing accommodations through the Disability Resources department. This has come in the form of long wait times and miscommunication due to the high number of applications that are submitted over the summer and early in the school year. 

When applying for housing, junior transfer student Ava Russell required a single to accommodate her disability. Yet in the summer before transferring for her sophomore year, she learned she’d been placed in one of the two doubles in a building full of singles. 

“Disability [Resources] was basically like, ‘Sorry, we can’t do anything.’ And I was like, ‘Well, I have this disability. You can’t bump someone out that doesn’t have that?’ And they were like, ‘No, sorry, you’re too late.’ Even though the reason I didn’t apply on time was because I got bad information in the first place,” Russell said. 

This slow response time was also an issue for another WashU student who requested anonymity due to privacy concerns. He said that he requested a single room on July 7, and Disability Resources denied his housing accommodation on Aug. 28, 10 days after he had already moved into a double room. He immediately applied for reconsideration and reached out to senior administrators in WashU’s Division of Student Success who reached out to Disability Resources on his behalf. 

“I don’t think such a process would even need attention from the senior administrations because if it really involves them, then there’s something really wrong [with the process],” he said. 

With the help of these administrators, he moved into a new room on Sept. 21. His accommodation was approved by Disability Resources after his move on Sept. 23. 

Russell said it took about a month and a half to get her disability approved, but she was told by the Office of Residential Life that nothing could be changed about her living situation until a spot opened up. Russell said when a room opened up on her floor, she reached out to the Residential Life again. She says if she hadn’t been proactive about the situation, she would not have been able to change rooms. 

“By the time he was moving out, [Residential Life] didn’t even tell me there was a spot,” Russell said. “I ended up reaching out to Disability Resources [and saying] ‘This room is open on this floor where I can move in, can you please approve me so I can move in within the next 24 hours? And that’s what ended up happening.” 

Chris Stone, Director of Disability Resources explained that when students submit a request to Disability Resources, they get an automated message that says the office will aim to get back to them in 10 to 15 business days. However, when such a large number of requests come in at the same time, the processing time slows down.

Once a request is submitted, it joins a queue before being reviewed twice by Disability Resources staff. They may reach back out to the student for more information or a meeting. Sometimes, additional documentation is needed from a healthcare professional. Depending on the complexity of the request, certain accommodations can be processed faster than others, according to Stone. 

The anonymous student also said he experienced difficulties in meeting Disability Resources documentation requirements. He visited the Student Health Center, but was told that physicians can only advocate for preexisting conditions and cannot make any new diagnoses.

“That gives me a feeling that [Disability Resources] are trying to deliberately tightening this threshold so that a lot of documentation is required before a decision could be made,” he said. “There is one thing I would like to reflect from this process: Insufficient documentation doesn’t mean the disability does not exist.”

He said the entire process made him feel dismissed and as if WashU didn’t care about him.

“I actually started … thinking of whether coming to this University is the right choice because I just simply don’t even have the basic conditions of being able to sleep,” he said.

According to Stone, the process of getting accommodations through Disability Resources is not meant to be restrictive in any sense. The office’s purpose is simply to support students when they can determine that there is a disabling condition. 

“I trust when you tell me that you have a condition, I’m not challenging that you have a condition, but I’m generally needing that third-party information to verify and show us how it’s been evaluated to reach the level of being disabling,” Stone said.

Oftentimes when the office is unable to accommodate students, they still look to support students in other ways. While students are waiting, Stone encourages them to seek out other resources like Health Services or utilize the room change requests through the WashU Housing Portal. 

“The best advice is don’t just wait. Don’t think the accommodation in and of itself is the only thing that’s going to be supportive of you. Be looking into those other resources too, and what can you do to support yourself in the interim until that can be done,” Stone said.

Russell said she understands that Disability Resources is working as fast as they can. 

“The responses are as timely as they can be. I think Disability Resources have a stigma for never being fast,” Russell said. “But the thing that from both schools I’ve noticed is you really have to keep checking in and sort of push, push, push, or otherwise your request will kind of go unnoticed.”