The Boston City Council on Wednesday voted to require colleges with a presence in Boston to provide a list of off-campus addresses where students are residing, in a step intended to fight chronic overcrowding and protect the health and safety of the thousands of students living in the city.
The measure was approved three months after a Boston Globe Spotlight Team investigation, "Shadow Campus," revealed that illegal, overcrowded apartments with hazardous conditions riddle the city's university neighborhoods, including a large number in violation of a zoning rule that prohibits more than four full-time undergraduates from sharing a house or apartment.
After a fire at an off-campus apartment in Allston last year killed 22-year-old Binland Lee, a Boston University student, community activists called on colleges in Boston to release the addresses of their off-campus students to enable the city to build a database that could be used to detect dangerous, overcrowded living conditions.
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