As early as this summer, Harvard will begin block-renting apartments in communities where it traditionally does not have a significant presence-a strategy to help cope with the shortage of graduate student housing, one of the University's most pressing issues.

The pilot program-10-15 unit blocks in new areas like Dorchester and Watertown-marks a new approach to affiliated housing by the University. In the past, Harvard has not served as a middleman, and graduate housing has either been owned by the University or directly offered by outside landlords.

Harvard's graduate programs have been faulted in the past for driving up housing prices in Cambridge and Boston. Administrators say the new program is a step toward an eventual goal of offering Harvard-controlled housing to the majority of graduate students.

"We will rent [the apartments], control them, and then turn around and lease them to students," says Susan Keller, director of residential real estate for Harvard Planning and Real Estate (HPRE).

The number of units in the pilot program is not significant in the scope of the University's affiliated housing, but administrators say that if students respond well, the program will likely be greatly expanded.

And despite some concern over forcing graduate students to make longer commutes to campus, Harvard officials say they think the new housing offers students two basic benefits-a sense of community and lower rents.

BF: SEARCHING FOR BEDS

According to Keller, HPRE would like to eventually accommodate half of the University's graduate students in affiliated housing, keeping these students from entering the tight private real estate market. The current number is around 30 percent.