Earlier Student Housing Q&A meeting reveals gives more details behind the student housing closure

By Essie Newton and Lexi Reign

Earlier this month, the ICC Board of Trustees held a special meeting, where they revealed that Illinois Central College Student Housing LLC had not communicated with them about the decision to shut down student housing until after the decision was made.

At the beginning of March, an email from the vice president of Student Success, Jon Neidy, was sent to the residents of the student housing complex, informing them that student housing was closing down at the end of the semester.

A day after this email was sent, ICC staff members held a meeting in the Student Housing Clubhouse, where students asked questions about the student housing complex shutting down, the audio of which was just sent to Harbinger Student Media.

Jon Neidy started the meeting by answering a question a student had about why student housing was shutting down.

“ICC Student Housing, where we’re sitting right now, is not owned by ICC. It is owned by an LLC that is kind of adjacent to the ICC Foundation,” Neidy said. “When the buildings were built, it would cost a lot of money, so [the LLC] took out a bond. That bond insurer has essentially said they are no longer willing to continue to put money into the project [the student housing complex].”

Kim Armstrong, who at the time was ICC’s vice president of Marketing and Outreach, answered the question further, “The situation they are in is that there is bigger debt on this property than it is valued at. So they would have to put more money on top of that to create greater debt. That is why they made the decision. They didn’t make it to be difficult. They didn’t make it to put people out.”

Later on in the meeting, Neidy added that ICC “will be talking to the attorneys and other folks that have interest in the property.”

The rest of the meeting consisted of questions student housing residents had about finding new housing.