So a community has to emerge. After watching things develop from the hub of the Village, the administration building, Mrs. Joseph Stano, one-half of the first couple to arrive, was enthusiastic about the way things had gone. "Cooperation has been absolutely wonderful," she said. "There's been no end of willingness to get together and exchange ideas."
The first exchange of ideas on any large scale came last Saturday night, when--in the best New England tradition--the first Town Meeting was held. Rents held the center of interest, and fact finding committees were set up to look into the whys and wherefores of rents, transportation. FPHA projects, and the organization of recreation. Mr. Taft, who spent the evening trying to find suitable answers, was optimistic. "It was a corker," he said.
But if the meeting was a "corker," it didn't solve the riddle of the rents.
Pegged at three levels, the rents run from $41 to $55, stopping for the two-bedroom units at $48; all utilities are included. Rents on the Jarvis and Divinity School fields FPHA units start at $30 and quit when they get to $35, although heat is not included in this figure. How come, the Villagers want to know, are our rents so much higher?
The answer apparently lies someplace in the toils of the FPHA, who juggle various factors and arrive at a "fair rent value" for all their units.
Taken in combination with the $18 monthly for a commuting ticket the rents are forcing students to live partly on capital. Fred Kinsman, '49 expressed the problem, "We can stay here only as long as our savings hold out."
Other gripes are smaller: the bother of having to spend three hours a day commuting: the fact that taking books out overnight is next to impossible, since the train gets them in barely in time for a 9 o'clock; the small stoves which take intricate handling to get all parts of a meal ready at the same time.
If the rents are lowered (and there is a good chance that they may be) the new Villager at Harvardevens Village will count himself reasonably well off.