By Michael J. Cook
Where will you go when you graduate? Students have a basic choice during the four years spent at the University before entering the real world: live on campus and deal with the policies of the University, or live without them off-campus and handle other stresses. After the years spent at the University, students face a different choice-whether to stay on the Island or leave. As a growing number of Long Island graduates can attest, that choice is becoming more and more difficult. Natalie Gaebelein, 24, made the choice to stay. A recent graduate from Brevard College in North Carolina, Gaebelein is one of many graduates who grew up on Long Island but cannot afford to stay.
“There’s nothing for people my age,” Gaebelein said. “There’s nowhere to live. You either live at home in your childhood bedroom-which is pretty embarrassing-[or in] somebody’s basement.”
According to Pearl Kamer, Long Island’s chief economist, the lack of affordable housing coupled with lower birth rates, has shown a decrease in the number of young people on Long Island. Citing U.S. Census data, Kamer said that the number of Long Islanders between the ages of 25 and 44 decreased by 122,477, 15 percent.
“Many are college graduates with skills we need to grow our economy,” Kamer said at a recent Uniondale real estate conference. “If employers can’t find the workers they need to fill the available jobs, employment will stagnate and companies will move away.”
But graduates such as Gabelein are fighting back. Inspired by her other struggling college-graduate friends, she created a group called “Stay on Long Island,” which will lobby for more affordable housing. Between the cries of outrage from graduates, and the worries from others of a downward-spiraling economy, the group has already found strong support.
Having donated “several thousand” to the group, developer Gerald Wolkoff is proposing a 460-acre mini town project called Heartland Town Square. While Kamer suggests that the Island will need 127,000 affordable housing units over the next 10 years, the proposed project will aim to narrow that gap-providing 9,130 apartments, as well as 5.3 million square feet for offices, restaurants and hotels. The money donated to the group Stay on Long Island has allowed it to organize, set up a Web site and produce and distribute fliers to college campuses in Suffolk County.
“It’s a wonderful marriage,” Wolkoff said. “This is what I am clamoring for, and we are both on the same path.”
Stay on Long Island’s first meeting will be held on Nov. 15 at the Suffolk County Community College’s Brentwood campus.
For more information visit www.stayonlongisland.com.
The New Complex (above), the only graduate student housing on campus, will soon be replaced by the residence hall under construction. (Stephen Cooney)