Members of the Open Housing Initiative were optimistic at last night’s Michigan Student Assembly meeting about the possibility of making gender-neutral housing an option available to students next fall.

Allison Horky, co-chair of the Spectrum Center Student Advisory Board, spoke at last night’s meeting about the Open Housing Initiative’s progress and goals for the coming months. The student group is currently assembling a report to present to residence hall administrators this December.

“We needed a more detailed report, we needed logistics, we needed survey data, all of these variable things that show, a varied amount of different kinds of support,” said Horky, who's a Social Work student.

Horky said in an interview after the meeting that the goal of establishing an open housing option is to create an atmosphere of acceptance on campus. If the policy is implemented, students who choose the open housing option would be able to choose a roommate of any gender.

“It’s good for the campus community because it respects students’ freedoms and rights,” Horky said. “Implicit in this initiative is that we believe that students have the right and freedom to choose how they live.”

Though both the Residence Halls Association and MSA passed resolutions supporting open housing, plans to incorporate the new housing option have yet to go into effect in any residence halls.

Horky said that the Open Housing Initiative’s report to residence hall administrators will be a key step in implementing the housing on campus.

“Ultimately, if housing is going to be supportive, then the other administrators will respect that and also support the change,” Horky said. “We hope to have it available for students that are returning to housing this coming year. The following year it would be ideal if first-year students coming into the system could use it, so that would be fall 2012.”

According to Horky, the Open Housing Initiative has been working to spread awareness of the option on campus.

“We’re trying to focus on res. halls specifically” she said. “We’re doing panels in the res. halls, were doing bulletin boards for the RAs. We’re doing flyers, and all that kind of thing.”

Open Housing Initiative representatives will also be distributing flyers and answering questions about the option on the Diag on Oct. 28.

MSA President Chris Armstrong, who ran his campaign for MSA president partly on implementing an open housing option, said in an interview last night that he is optimistic about the future of the initiative.

“I think that as I’ve mentioned before, it’s really been an initiative that has gained momentum," Armstrong said. "I think that it’s something that a lot of students really care about."

— Samantha Norman contributed to this report.