Learn 5 ways Carolina helps students living off campus

While making the local community home can be exciting, securing housing and identifying roommates can potentially be difficult or stressful for Tar Heels living off campus.

But the University’s off-campus student life office offers online resources, meets with students in person and hosts campus events.

Patrick Preudhomme, the off-campus student life program director, and Devin Buie ’22, the office’s coordinator, shared ways they educate, advise and support students.

They host a listing website.

The off-campus student life’s listing website, a partnership with apartments.com, allows students to view apartments and properties for rent near campus. The interactive map feature allows for quick and easy browsing.

You can filter for numerous specificities, including number of bedrooms, distance from campus, access to public transportation, lease type and whether a property houses more undergraduates or graduate students. Local property owners must register with off-campus student life to have their property listed.

They help you find a roommate.

Preudhomme said his office’s roommate finder portal — accessible to current and incoming students — is among their most popular resources. The tool is particularly useful for graduate students, many of whom “are coming in without knowing anyone,” Preudhomme said.

They teach Tar Heels to be good neighbors.

Making sure students living in single-family housing neighborhoods and apartments know how to regulate their own parties is also a priority. Nearly 900 parties were registered in the 2025-26 school year through the office’s party registration program, which includes a one-time 30-minute class.

“We teach them about what that looks like and what the expectations are,” Preudhomme said. “That way, if they do get the police called on their party for noise, rather than the police showing up, they get a courtesy call to shut it down themselves.”

Off-campus student life is also a part of the Good Neighbor Initiative, a collaborative effort between the University, student organizations, the towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, Orange County and local police departments. The initiative encourages students to be responsible neighbors and creates dialogue between them and community members. The annual GNI door-to-door walks will be held Aug. 14 and 21 this year. Hargraves Community Center will host the GNI Community Cookout on Sept. 24.

They work with local housing properties.

Preudhomme said off-campus student life has a “two-way relationship” with the 46 local properties that come to campus housing fairs. The office shows students how to be good residents and directs them to these in-network properties while also making sure those properties are meeting students where they are and working with them.

In one recent success story, Preudhomme and his colleagues convinced multiple properties to allow international students to sign a lease with no cancellation fee should they not receive a visa.

“Our job is to make sure our students have a place to live,” Preudhomme said. “If they’re willing to do what’s right for our students, we want to make sure our students can find a way to them.”

They answer whatever question you need answered.

Buie has answered “questions about every topic”: How do I provide a source of income if I haven’t started my job yet? Should I sign the lease or find a roommate first? I’m a parent and want to know if my Tar Heel is following the rules.

To answer these questions, off-campus student life collaborates with internal and external groups like Carolina Housing, the towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, Carolina Legal Services, the Campus & Community Coalition and the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life.

“It’s figuring out what exactly each student needs and working with them on that,” Buie said.