'They definitely take advantage of students':

Annika Bjorklund took a breath outside of her apartment’s management office, once again, prepared for disappointment. This time, the problem was a leak from the ceiling. Last week, it had been ventilation issues in the bathroom. The week before, it was the horde of cockroaches that frequented her six-person apartment.

The common thread every time Bjorklund and her roommates approached management at the Shrine Collection, an apartment complex populated with many USC students, was that all they got in response to their concerns were “promises that they didn't follow through on.”

“We were continually asking them to fix things and got nothing in response,” Bjorklund said. “If you cornered them and got them in a place where they couldn't really dodge you anymore, then they would fix stuff, but it was just a lot of work to get them to come to any conclusions.”

Bjorklund's experiences sound a lot like stories collected over three months of research and interviews with two dozen people — USC students who complained of mold, bugs, unresponsive landlords and unsafe conditions. One moved into a unit that was completely flooded upon arrival. Another found black widow spiders living in a hole in his wall. Many are suing their landlords and housing companies, including Bjorklund.

USC’s on-campus housing options are limited to fewer than 7,000 bed spaces for an undergraduate population of about 20,000, with another 20,000 students in graduate programs based in L.A. First-year undergrads and some second-year students are prioritized for those spaces, leaving upperclassmen and grads with the challenge of finding off-campus accommodations in one of the world's most expensive cities in the middle of a housing crisis.

There are dozens of apartment complexes and housing companies in the University Park neighborhood that specifically market to USC students and offer “luxury living refined” or the key to “the ultimate Los Angeles, California lifestyle,” per their promotional materials.

Off-campus housing options for USC students

Click each locator icon to learn more about the building.

While this is not an exhaustive list of the off-campus housing accommodations in the University Park neighborhood, it shows the competition these companies face and the heavy emphasis on "luxurious" living for students in the marketing of these buildings. All photos are from the buildings' websites or marketing materials.

However, new reporting reveals that many students have few options other than properties that target them and then capitalize on a system built on overpricing and under-delivering.

For many students, the purported extravagant lifestyle, or even the basic idea of a comfortable and safe living space, is not their reality.

Bjorklund, who graduated from USC in May, moved into “Corsica” on 32nd Street in August 2021 with five roommates. Shortly after moving in, she said they began experiencing a “plethora” of problems.

Those issues included “crumbling exterior walls, electrical hazards, leaky faucets, lack of ventilation in the bathroom, pest control issues and plumbing issues,” per the complaint filed by the attorneys representing Bjorklund and 11 former residents from four other units in the Shrine Collection.

The Corsica building is on 32nd Street, across from the Shrine Auditorium. (Photo by Kaitlyn Huamani)

The civil lawsuit, which is ongoing, alleges that management mishandled a host of problems the former residents experienced, primarily mold exposure. They are seeking the total amount they had paid in rent, along with a list of unspecified damages and their legal fees.

The lead attorney representing Bjorklund and the plaintiffs, Erik Zograbian, said at the inception of the case, he spoke with nearly 100 residents. “It was a pervasive problem throughout all Shrine Collection units,” he said.

“The vast majority of students started noticing mold and started complaining about it,” Zograbian said. “For a pretty long time, they were ignored. Or the management would send maintenance and they would come and scrape it off, which is completely inappropriate.”

In one case detailed in the complaint, after management sent maintenance to inspect a unit for potential mold exposure, they told the residents that the “black substance” was simply “dust” and that the apartment was “habitable.” In most of the units outlined in the plaintiffs’ initial complaint, residents paid out-of-pocket for independent inspections or mold test kits to confirm the presence of mold in their apartments.

Bjorklund and her roommates bought an at-home mold test, which came back positive, for their apartment in the Corsica building. (Photo courtesy of Annika Bjorklund)

Many of the former residents involved in the lawsuit against the Shrine Collection and parent company Stuho experienced symptoms such as nausea, trouble breathing, unusual fatigue and weakened immune systems while living there. These symptoms are all linked to prolonged mold exposure.

The Shrine Collection and Stuho declined to comment due to an internal policy against speaking publicly about ongoing litigation. In their publicly filed response to the plaintiffs’ complaint, their attorneys said they deny all of the allegations, and that any illnesses the former residents experienced or damage to their apartments were “the result of their own comparative fault and the comparative fault of others.”

USC is not affiliated with the Shrine Collection and Stuho and the university is not named in the lawsuit.

Hear what USC students have to say about their housing experiences:

Glafira Lopez, a community organizer at Strategic Action for a Just Economy, an organization that works to empower tenants by informing them of their rights, said the problem at USC is simple — and common throughout L.A.

“The two true parts of the problem are the fact that there's not enough affordable student housing that’s being built by USC and that there's developers who are taking advantage of that,” Lopez said. USC Housing declined to comment.

While Bjorklund’s case and that of her fellow plaintiffs are on the extreme end of the spectrum of student experiences in off-campus housing, many students have dealt with more common problems, such as what they describe as poor management practices and lack of communication. In a survey of a small sample of USC students, over 50% of respondents reported unresponsive management as a persistent problem with off-campus housing.

Max Cohen, a current senior at USC, encountered a major communication blunder with his building management when he moved into his new apartment in August. Despite previous discussions with management to remove a massive 3-in-1 bed, closet and desk system before he moved in, the floor-to-ceiling contraption was still taking up his entire bedroom when he arrived.

When he spoke with management at Mosaic Student Communities about their verbal agreement that removing the furniture system would be possible, Cohen said he was met with vehement denial.

The space in Cohen's bedroom is dominated by the 3-in-1 bed, desk and closet system. (Photo courtesy of Max Cohen)

“They basically said ‘No, we never told you that, we never said that you could remove it,’ which, in a sense, is a little bit of my fault because I just had verbal conversations with them in person and over the phone, but there was nothing written,” Cohen said. “But they kind of screwed us. My initial reaction was ‘This is horrible.’”

While Cohen, whose video about the room went viral on TikTok this fall, said he’s gotten used to his set-up, the bait-and-switch he went through is a fairly common experience for many students.

One USC student who graduated in 2021 said his landlord “dropped a bomb” on him and his housemates four months into their lease for a house on Menlo Avenue. In November 2020, management company Orion Housing told him they were building an additional house on the property’s backyard, and that the site would be under active construction for the next four months.

The alum, who requested anonymity as he’s actively suing Orion Housing in a case that’s dragged on for three years, said the construction was more than he bargained for. The four-month project involved tearing up the concrete in the backyard and in the driveway, digging 6-foot trenches in the front yard, demolishing the stairs to his unit and many more steps to “shoehorn” the second unit into the limited available space.

“It was extremely unpleasant,” he said. “Especially when they would have concrete saws or jackhammers going — the whole house shook. You would have to go somewhere else.”

Even when construction projects aren’t happening in students’ backyards, they can still certainly cause a headache. Students who signed leases at the new construction project The Hub Figueroa know that all too well; three months after the start of their leases on $5,000-a-month units, they hadn’t even stepped foot inside the building because it was still being built.

A month before the projected move-in, sophomore transfer student Tori Feinstein got an email that reassured her after seeing photos of scaffoldings and cement being poured at the site of her very-soon-to-be future home. The management promised they were “confident” that the building would be ready on time. “We’re prepared to make our move-in date,” they wrote to future residents on July 12.

Two weeks later, just 19 days shy of move-in, management told residents they were not, in fact, prepared to make their move-in date. Because of ongoing construction, move-in was delayed — a postponement they said “could be anywhere from 1-4 weeks.”

In the end, the delay would be 94 days. Feinstein and others renting in the 577-unit Hub were finally able to move into their apartments on Nov. 16, 13 weeks into the 15-week semester.

The Hub offered residents options for alternative housing, prorated rent or a daily stipend after announcing the delay. Feinstein chose the option that provided her with hotel accommodations in downtown L.A. and a $100 daily stipend.

“Going into a completely new school as a transfer and knowing that I wouldn’t really be able to have a sense of community was really scary,” said Feinstein, who moved to L.A. from New York.

Speaking multiple times over the course of her Hub ordeal, Feinstein said the inconvenience was most frustrating. “I’m living out of a suitcase,” she said in September.

While she was staying at the J.W. Marriott from August through October, Feinstein spent up to 15 hours a day on campus to save costs on the Ubers and Lyfts to and from the hotel. Her $100 daily stipend barely covered the many costs she incurred because of the displacement: two daily rideshares (typically during rush hour), food she had to order since she didn’t have a kitchen, laundry services she had to pay for without her in-unit machines, and more. All of these expenses came while Feinstein was still actively paying rent for a unit and amenities she couldn’t use.

After she finally settled into her unorthodox living situation downtown in early October, Feinstein and her fellow hotel dwellers were given a mere three-day notice from The Hub to pack their things and move into the Lorenzo apartment complex in the USC neighborhood, which is owned by a different developer. Then, construction was further delayed after a contractor died on site at the Hub.

Feinstein is finally settled in her apartment at The Hub. (Photo by Kaitlyn Huamani)

Once residents were finally able to move into the new complex, it wasn’t as picture-perfect as promised, even with the three additional months spent on the building.

Click the image to englarge it. The top image is a rendering of the rooftop pool at The Hub from its website. The bottom photo of the pool area shows that it was still under construction when residents moved in, as photographed here on Dec. 1. (Photo by Kaitlyn Huamani)

Residents complained of broken outlets, missing furniture, a power outage in the entire building on the day of move-in and a lack of hot water that first weekend. Many of the amenities are still not available to residents, including the pool.

“It’s very clear — I don’t think the Hub is done or necessarily ready for us to be here,” Feinstein said on the night she moved in. “It’s a little frustrating that we’re moving in and not getting everything, but they’re trying their hardest.”

The Hub, along with all other properties and companies mentioned in this story, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The repeated undelivered promises and dishonored agreements from housing companies around the USC neighborhood have left many students feeling exploited.

This problem is not exclusive to USC, either. Students at Southern University in Louisiana resorted to sleeping in their cars in January to avoid their pest-infested apartments. In South Carolina, more than 2,400 students in the state have reported mold in their dorm rooms since August 2020. Across the country, students recently shared their struggle with finding any form of affordable housing with the Washington Post.

“They understand that they're renting to students and they're able to take advantage of the fact that a lot of us are renting for the first or second time. A lot of us are away from home and from our parents, who typically understand more about housing practices,” said Cohen, the USC senior. “They definitely take advantage of students and capitalize on that.”

As more students begin to challenge landlords and management companies over the issues they’ve encountered in off-campus housing, some like Bjorklund just hope they’ll “make them reconsider the way they treat student tenants.”

But in the interim, Bjorklund also noted Trojans face very few alternatives to housing options that prey on students’ need for accessible, safe accommodations close to USC. “We all just have to deal with it because what other option do we have?”