Dear neighbors,
We finished our 11 months at UASRA this term 2021-2022, how wonderfully and whole-heartedly you have supported us and one another to make this a successful, efficicent and compassionate year! We want to take a moment and thank you all and express our heartfelt gratitude as we move to the last month of this UASRA term.
Please visit the GA minutes on the uasra website to catch up on all the monthly community updates. Also, please see our 6 monthly blog post Based on the meetings held bimonthly 1:1 UASRA president with Reslife, monthly UASRA and ResLIfe board meeting, monthly Ploicy review board meeting (PRB), Genral assembly, interactions with Tenant Union, and other input from resident community members, please find a summary of the updates of the work done so far:
New Laundry machines-Great and welcome news: Our requests and your participation in the community feedback surveys and polls have brought in a great change, all UAS laundry rooms are getting new laundry machines installed in the month of May, 2022! Hooray!! Thank you so much, Housing and Maintenance team
Safety ambassadors keeping our packages safe and helping to minmize mail-side theft by reducing packages left by the main gate floors and deliveriing them to the apartments. Unclaimed packages are delivered to the main housing office which contacts the residents on their registered emails and phone numbers for 1 week. More community wide Safety-security educational efforts ongoing by Saftey team, please keep a lookout in the next ResLife's newsletter. Residents who are facing multiple missed delivery/missing packages, please contact Housing office sooner so that Safety team can investigate (310-398-4692, safety@ha.ucla.edu).
Sawtelle Swimming pool heater repaired in April, for poolside hot-water shower and shade above the pergola-conversations ongoing.
Metal plates on the main entry gates padded-Foam padding was added to all the metal plates around the door handle for each UAS entry gate. The metal plates were added as a security measure to minimise tresspassers' efforts who attempted to open the doors by propping wires from above/ below the door handles. However, resident members reported that the additional metal racks could cause injury especially when holding the door. The Maintenance team put the foam proofing to cover the metal spines. Thank you!
Rose avenue garden plots: 11 new raised beds being added to Rose avenue apartments, please send your requests for garden. Garden program updated to increase community participation, compassion and mastergardeners and volunteership programs.
Up to date enrollment status: Residents please reach out to your ucla department for updated enrollment letters to be uploaded to housing website. For the past two years, most information at housing was not up to date due to remote workings, all UCLA departments and residents have been requested to send upto date contract exntenson/enrollnment. Most residents whose letter was not updated recieved Action or Notice letters, which were resolved when the information was updated. We hope the system will work better moving forward. UASRA requested Housing to offer Covid-recovery related housing extensions.
Submit your State Rent relief to housing- A step by step guide provided by the UCLA Tenant Union. For the remaining amount not covered by relief fund, residents have the option of paying the amount in installments. Please get in contact with Housing office for further details.
Stroller storage issue- Storing the strollers or any combustible items under the stairways is a fire hazard, ie., in case of a Fire, the combustible item will block the only exit route (staircase) of the building. We are in convesration with Housing team to provide us safe and practical alternatives. a) Extra garages- these are limited and residents are in a que to recieve closed garages so this would not work as a solution. b) Under stairs-not a solution as the area under the stairs is not fire-proof. c) Housing proposes stroller racks in the open Parking structure or in between buildings towards the parking areas, these will be away from main apartments. Please let us know if you would like these at uasraboard@gmail.com.
Recycling and sustainabilty education: We partnered with UCLA Sustainabilty for SB1383 workshop on zoom, please see the notes shared in the blogpost.
UASRA Green coordinator and Free food program is growing, thank you to all the community volunteers to make this project efficient and a great success! UASRA and Let's Be Whole collaborated to provide food distribution and holistic health education in May. To more such collabs!!
4th UASRA Basic needs distribution drive: Last year, (2020-2021) the main UCLA campus were closed due to COVID-19, so the CPO office which provides assistance to students while on campus brought the food & basic needs items to the students at their residence, hence to the UAS housing campuses! When we realized that the CPO distributions were NOT UASRA partnerships but rather a special change of location due to covid and that the CPO drives resumed/shifted back to Main UCLA campus, UASRA team carried out 3 Basic needs distribution drives at the UAS housing location, thank you to all the residents who participated and volunteered. Please keep a look out for the 4th and term-end Basic needs distribution drive, June 25 (Saturday), 10:30am to 1pm. We utilize the Mutual aid fund from the Budget to procure the items. By mid term, our UASRA Treasurer is able to relocate unused funds from other programs to increase community wide welfare projects, thank you so much to our Treasurer for their great insight!
Community inclusivity events: UASRA and ARA teams celebrated great events and workshops, with old and new resident members, for UASRA events we utilize the Mutual aid fund, Event coordinator's and Unit rep budgets to facilitate these events which are paid through the monthly $6 contribution per apartment. See blogposts for past events. Keep a lookout on forthcoming Community inclusivity Drum circle (Sepulveda -June 5, 2:30pm to 4pm), Pride Event (Sawtelle Community centre and poolside-June 5, 12 noon to 3pm), Garage sale (June 11, 10am to 12pm, both Sawtelle and Sepulveda side-more details to come) and Equity, Health and Safety's International Movie night and Arts-crafts (June 25 more details to come).
Community excursion trips on hold: Thank you to all neighbors who participated in the UAS Excursion destination survey, the majority and GA consensus was for Aquarium of the Pacific. However, due to covid uncertainities and the risk of not being able to get enough numbers to buy bulk tickets and rent a bus, we have put this trip on hold at the moment.
Mental health education and awareness: We partnered with UCLA CAPS to continue to support our community neighbors with mental health resources and education, these will resume in the next term. Please see the notes from last zoom session.
Community in person classes: ESL classes, parent support group ongoing at Sepulveda resource room. We utilize the Community centre coordinator's budget to fund/discount these classes.
UASRA in person space reservations now resumes for all residents. Please fill the form atleast 2 weeks in advance, ResLife will review the requests every Thursday.
UASRA team and conflict-inclusivity training: With ResLife's collaboration, we are aiming for a quarterly conflict resolution and inclusivity training to improve and better our interpesronsal skills and connect with our community in the most compassionate way!
Updated UASRA officers bylaws, election rules: Thank you to all the amazing UASRA team members for their input and great work towards making the bylaws and election rules non-punitive, fair and compassionate! A reminder, Constituition Article VI.E- past/current/future uasra officers found dismantling uasra resources (including but not limited to) emails, gdrive contents, uasra food volunteer groups etc have been/will be barred from future UASRA committee participation. This step was taken to increase accountability-with great power comes greater responsibility! We will continue our efforts towards transparency and fair methods.
New term UASRA team and election results: Congratulations to all the incoming UASRA team, we wish them all the very best and look forward to a great year! Thank you, dear UAS community for your support and for placing your trust in us! None of the work would have been possible without your constant support and feedback.
UASRA team appreciation: This year, we worked on creating a great UASRA team by supporting each other, and met in person for 2 UASRA social events, our final end of term social, a farewell event on June 5-we look forward to meeting all family members of our UASRA officers. We utilise the Incentive budget to support these events.
UASRA Monthly Newsletter: Thanks to our amazing website editor, our monthly newsletters are a great platform to keep you up-to-date about things happening at UAS. These are shared as blogposts. Please also visit the uasra resources tab to see the researched and compiled lists.
End of the year feedback: Please send us your feedback as we wrap this year and hand over the duties to the next team. We will work on our shortcomings and better our strategies to represent our community, there's always room for improvements!
Please join us at the monthly General assembly meetings, third Wednesday, 7pm on zoom (except for August and December) if you have concerns/comments for Maintenance/Housing, ResLife/safety/security/ucpd and/or UASRA. For full GA meeting minutes for each month, visit https://www.uasra.org/meetings. Write to us at uasraboard@gmail.com for comments/queries. Watch this space for future updates. Stay safe, healthy, keep harboring empathy, kindness and stand together, dear UASRA! We are all together and greatly appreciate your trust and support for us. With gratitude, Thank you!
Best wishes, Sufia Sadaf UASRA President 2021-2022
On behalf of the entire Team UASRA