{"id":11712,"date":"2024-12-05T07:55:03","date_gmt":"2024-12-05T13:55:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin-new\/?post_type=campus_story&p=11712"},"modified":"2024-12-05T07:55:03","modified_gmt":"2024-12-05T13:55:03","slug":"in-helping-students-find-housing-mama-erin-brings-the-tlc-and-hard-won-street-smarts","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/in-helping-students-find-housing-mama-erin-brings-the-tlc-and-hard-won-street-smarts\/","title":{"rendered":"In helping students find housing, \u2018Mama Erin\u2019 brings the TLC and hard-won street smarts"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
In her role as an assistant director in the Division of University Housing, Erin Warner helps students negotiate Madison\u2019s complex and sometimes anxiety-inducing housing market. Photo by Joel Ninmann\/University Housing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At a recent campus forum for UW\u2013Madison students about housing options in the city, panelist Erin Warner paused the proceedings early on to secure more chairs for the overflow crowd and to make sure everyone knew about the free lunch buffet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a mother,\u201d she told the students. \u201cI want everyone to be fed and comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The statement could almost be Warner\u2019s job description. It\u2019s certainly her mantra.<\/p>\n

Officially, Warner oversees\u00a0Off-Campus Housing Services<\/a>\u00a0as an assistant director in the\u00a0Division of University Housing<\/a>. Unofficially, she strives to be everyone\u2019s Badger mom. In helping students negotiate Madison\u2019s complex and sometimes anxiety-inducing housing market, she brings to bear whatever is needed \u2014 TLC, common sense, tough love. Sometimes she sounds like a therapist, other times a 911 operator.<\/p>\n

\u201cOK, first I need you to take a deep breath and stop panicking,\u201d she told a distraught undergraduate who approached her at a recent housing forum at the Pres House. The student was having difficulty finding an affordable apartment.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one has ever gone homeless on my watch, and I\u2019m not about to let you be the first,\u201d Warner told the student. \u201cMama Erin\u2019s got this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018A big fan club\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Division of University Housing established the Off-Campus Housing Services unit last year to help students and families navigate Madison\u2019s\u00a0increasingly challenging, highly competitive housing market<\/a>. The effort, which built on and enhanced a previous program in Campus and Visitor Relations, now has a designated office and full-time staff member.<\/p>\n

Jeff Novak, associate vice chancellor for finance and administration and director of University Housing, brought Warner on board in April 2023 to get the re-envisioned program up and running. At the time, Warner was the administrator for the Honors Program in the College of Letters & Science. On the side \u2014 and informally \u2014 she often would jump onto the Facebook page for Badger Parents and Families and try to help people who had concerns or gripes. Sometimes that meant giving advice, other times debunking rumors. Warner is a UW\u2013Madison alumna and the mother of two Badgers. She and her husband Jim have a daughter, Jamie, who graduated in May, and a son, Chase, a junior.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a parent herself, she had a wonderful way of communicating with other parents and responding to their fears and concerns with empathy and compassion but also facts and reason,\u201d Novak says. \u201cHelping others was a clear passion for her, and she had developed a big fan club doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joselyn Diaz-Valdes, an assistant director in the Office of Student Financial Aid, says students can find it intimidating to reach out for help.<\/p>\n

\u201cErin makes it easy because she\u2019s so approachable,\u201d Diaz-Valdes says. \u201cAnd she\u2019s phenomenal in a crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

In their corner<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Warner earned a bachelor\u2019s degree from UW\u2013Madison in social welfare and sociology and a master\u2019s degree from Indiana University in social work. She approaches her job squarely from the perspective of someone who\u2019s been there, experienced that.<\/p>\n

Between her two children, she\u2019s helped set budgets, navigated rent splits, monitored bedroom-picking lotteries and co-signed leases \u2014 even joint ones where she was liable for people she didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrust me, if there was a way to make it complicated, my Badgers found it,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen I tell students and families that I\u2019ve learned a lot of lessons the hard way, I truly mean it.\u201d<\/p>\n

One time, Jamie and her roommates unwittingly signed two legally binding leases simultaneously for two different apartments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was so crazy,\u201d says Jamie, now a clinical research coordinator at the UW Carbone Cancer Center. \u201cWhen you\u2019re 18 or 19, you don\u2019t always know what you\u2019re doing, or what you\u2019re signing, or what you\u2019re getting yourself into. That\u2019s what\u2019s so great about my mom. She\u2019s so knowledgeable and so willing to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jamie is fine sharing her mom with 50,000-plus students.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m lucky enough to be 15 minutes from home,\u201d she says. \u201cBut if your family is thousands of miles away, she can be your Wisconsin mom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Warner has an office at Slichter Residence Hall but prefers meeting students wherever they are \u2014 the Starbucks at Smith Residence Hall is a favorite spot. She gets the word out about her services by staffing information tables at dining halls and appearing at forums, workshops and other events across campus. (\u201cI insert myself in key places,\u201d she says.) Earlier this semester, she coordinated the campus\u2019s annual housing forum. More than 2,500 students attended \u2014 a record.<\/p>\n

Warner often meets with students one on one. (You can email her at\u00a0off-campus@housing.wisc.edu<\/a>.\u00a0) She reviews budgets and housing options with students, looking for ways to help them save on rent. She encourages them to differentiate between wants and needs, throwing some hard truths their way \u2014 \u201cThat rooftop pool may be super cool, but you\u2019ll pay for it.\u201d\u00a0She offers suggestions<\/a>\u00a0on how to find properties that might make the most sense for them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want students to feel like they have someone in their corner who understands that this process can be very stressful.\u201d<\/p>\n

And to all the Badger parents out there across the country or across the world, Warner wants you to know she\u2019s on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that if one of my children ever ends up in your backyard, you\u2019d do the same,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Written by Doug Erickson<\/p>\n

Link to original story: https:\/\/news.wisc.edu\/in-helping-students-find-housing-mama-erin-brings-the-tlc-and-hard-won-street-smarts\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At a recent campus forum for UW\u2013Madison students about housing options in the city, panelist Erin Warner paused the proceedings early on to secure more chairs for the overflow crowd and to make sure everyone knew about the free lunch buffet. \u201cI\u2019m a mother,\u201d she told the students. \u201cI want everyone to be fed and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":11714,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","institution":[103],"story_category":[],"class_list":["post-11712","campus_story","type-campus_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","institution-uw-madison"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story\/11712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/campus_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=11712"},{"taxonomy":"story_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story_category?post=11712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}