 I'm in unit 3 and for the entire month of December our laundry room was not working. Laundry. It's something that some students only first learn how to do the moment their parents leave them in their dorm. Yet, unlike the traditional Washington dry machines some students have at home, students living in their dorms are forced to pay a small fee for each of their loads. Contrasting this, students at other UC campuses such as UC Merced and UC Santa Barbara pay nothing for their laundry. To make matters worse many of the machines located in the dorms are either out of operation or do not sufficiently wash or dry clothes. Consequently, many students have found themselves spending upwards of $10 per week on laundry as they required to run multiple cycles to properly clean their clothes. As such, Berkeley's chapter of the Young Democratic Socialist of America took matters into their own hands by organizing a free laundry rally outside of the Kalahau scene assignments office on February 6th. This rally included speeches from YDSA organizers, Rithika Ramesh and Hannah Burkheimer, as well as ASCC Senator Amira Doty who is helping to sponsor the free laundry resolution. Senator Doty gave an impassioned speech which they called at the university for simply using students for revenue. Additionally, Hannah Burkheimer ended her speech by mentioning that Berkeley administration uses their status as the number one public school to hide other existing problems. We're the number one public university in the nation as we're closely told but sometimes this title feels like an excuse by the university not to have to provide as many services as they should because they'll know we'll accept anything for that Berkeley degree. Following the rally, I had the opportunity to sit down with a few members within YDSA organizing the movement. Rithika, Hannah and Shabangi updated me on how the movement has progressed so far. So we delivered our letter and the administration said that they would look at it. We gave them a couple weeks. We have an ASUC resolution already in the works. We've had multiple organizations like the Student Advocates Office and the Housing Justice Coalition like Housing Commission sign on some ASUC senators as well. We're planning to fly around campus so if you on sprawl or like libraries public places basically all you have to do is scan the QR code and then it'll send you like straight to your email and you can just hit send on the template. On a more personal note all three of the ladies talked about the personal experiences they faced with doing laundry in the dorms. There was a period of time where there were only two working washing machines for the entire building which is like six fours over a couple hundred people. There's only one laundry room for all the buildings in unit three and so we had to go to Beverly Cleary which only has four machines so that's four machines for a couple thousand students. I can wash the same clothes over and over again and I still feel like they're still stained and a little bit dirty. And then they've come out like kind of ruined and I've had to honestly buy new clothes. They're like save them for when I go home and wash them there. Me and also a lot of other people that signed the petition they mentioned that they'd have to spend more than four dollars on laundry because they have to continue washing their clothes over and over again to actually be clean. Most freshmen have just dealt with the overbearing costs of laundry and struggle to afford that. Some comments may be like oh what if you just you know separate out your clothes by color and like be more intentional with like how you do your laundry like that and that is it's just not feasible for a lot of students incurring the costs of just generally living in the Bay Area four dollar laundry is feels kind of like a slap in the face. Finally Hannah and Shabongi wrap things up by reminding me of the importance of this movement. When we think about problems of equity it's not always super big things it may just be like smaller things like laundry is just a cost of living issue. We're hoping that the freshmen who get involved now when they go into different apartments they're able to kind of carry over the same vibe to whatever apartments they're living and kind of just increase the awareness of like the amount of housing justice we really need in the area. As of now a free laundry bill is in the works and is awaiting the hearing in the ASUC Senate. While Berkeley administration has yet to respond to the letter sent by YDSA the organization encourages all to sign their petition as every signature matters. With Cal TV News this has been Kellan Lavey see you all next time.