{"id":924,"date":"2025-04-20T16:33:14","date_gmt":"2025-04-20T16:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/04\/20\/rao-and-clean-creates-petition-to-subsidize-residential-laundry\/"},"modified":"2025-04-20T16:33:25","modified_gmt":"2025-04-20T16:33:25","slug":"rao-and-clean-creates-petition-to-subsidize-residential-laundry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/04\/20\/rao-and-clean-creates-petition-to-subsidize-residential-laundry\/","title":{"rendered":"RAO and CLEAN! creates petition to subsidize residential laundry\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>On Feb. 27,<a href=\"https:\/\/linktr.ee\/cleanumich\"> The Coalition for Laundry Ease of Access Now!<\/a> and the<a href=\"https:\/\/raoatumich.my.canva.site\/?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAadItULVuRnCc0cd_2ChWqW-o8jGvZntyWjPVBzLWKb5AMUTgU-k5ZEzMwlU4Q_aem_dE836bscl5BZD9pf6K7iFQ\"> ResStaff Allied Organization<\/a> published a<a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/document\/u\/1\/d\/e\/2PACX-1vRVifqG-5P6VsuopH5zBKnXTHeypHMbmzMq5nbnMuqmu8fkaJTzX_4c1jJy_qlnoLjokgFYNrBOFnAh\/pub\"> petition<\/a> calling for subsidization of laundry in the dorms, arguing that all students, regardless of income-level, should be able to have access to personal hygiene resources.<\/p>\n<p>Each load of laundry costs $3 in the residential machines \u2014 $1.50 each for washing and drying. The Central Student Government previously <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/document\/d\/19UiQDvPb-4JMH7ZWmJIMyDz-s4yDm4ugj0Cs5GpsIHw\/edit?tab=t.0\">stated<\/a> that students living in dormitories on campus spend an average of $90-$200 on laundry per year, and the expenses cannot be covered by financial aid.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>CLEAN! is a student-run organization that advocates for laundry subsidization on campus. LSA junior Holden Hughes, head of publicity for CLEAN!, told The Daily paying for laundry places a heavy burden on students living in the dorms.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the main issues is just the fact that there\u2019s really no financial aid on campus right now that can help with paying for laundry,\u201d Hughes said. \u201cSo you could be in a financial situation that requires you to have a lot of need-based financial aid and then still be expected to pay for laundry.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>Hughes also said CLEAN! has received many positive responses from students since starting their campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve had over 500 people reach out in some capacity, whether that was engaging on social media or responding to our survey, sort of expressing their grievances with this,\u201d Hughes said. \u201cThey were more inclined to just buy new clothing items because it was cheaper to do that than to wash laundry once a week. \u2026 There were also stories of people sleeping on the floor of their dorm because they didn\u2019t want to get their bed sheets dirty.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with the The Daily, LSA junior Sam Dykhouse, research lead for CLEAN!, said the testimonies from students struggling with medical bills while attempting to also pay for laundry stuck with him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStudents that have recurring medical bills, that was one that stood out to us,\u201d Dykhouse said. \u201cHaving to pay laundry money makes it harder to afford those medical bills and makes them sort of add to the insecurity related to being able to afford those medical bills or medications that people obviously need and can\u2019t go without.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Hughes said he worries laundry expenses are contributing to larger environmental issues as well, claiming the current system encourages students to drive home to do laundry at home rather than use the dorm\u2019s facilities.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cThere were a lot of people who talked about the fact that they drive home \u2026 just to do laundry every weekend,\u201d Hughes said. \u201cThat stood out to me because our university is trying to decarbonize and to reduce their carbon footprint, and I think when you\u2019re also, at the same time,\u00a0 encouraging students to commute a long distance just to afford to do laundry,\u00a0 you\u2019re sort of acting hypocritical to those goals.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dykhouse told The Daily about a recent meeting with MHousing, where there seemed to be little commitment to making free laundry a reality.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDuring that meeting, we presented evidence discussing costs as we had calculated \u2026 and really tried to highlight the voices of students on campus who are struggling with this issue,\u201d Dykhouse said. \u201cWhen representatives were pushed a little bit harder, they failed to give a concrete commitment to actually modifying the (laundry) contract.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Surrounding universities such as<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlive.com\/lansing-news\/2013\/01\/msu_laundry_notes.html\"> Michigan State University<\/a>,<a href=\"https:\/\/wmich.edu\/housing\/info\/laundry\"> Western Michigan University<\/a>, and<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thelantern.com\/2019\/08\/laundry-now-free-in-university-residence-facilities\/\"> Ohio State University<\/a> have already subsidized student laundry services. MHousing declined to comment on why students still have to pay for laundry in the dorms.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with The Daily, Nursing junior Arlette Morales, a North Quad Residence Hall resident, said she thinks laundry in the dorms should be free because paying for laundry personally affects her more as a first-generation college student.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-3    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cThe dorms are already really expensive \u2026 and it\u2019s starting to get more expensive too,\u201d Morales said. \u201cI\u2019m a first generation student. \u2026 So it\u2019s just kind of like, more of a burden having to pay for laundry. \u2026 I feel like (the administration) should support us more.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><em>Daily Staff Contributor Micayla Horwitz can be reached at hmicayla@umich.edu.<\/em><\/p>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Feb. 27, The Coalition for Laundry Ease of Access Now! and the ResStaff Allied Organization published a petition calling for subsidization of laundry in the dorms, arguing that all students, regardless of income-level, should be able to have access to personal hygiene resources. Each load of laundry costs $3 in the residential machines \u2014 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[1025,1026,1030,1027,1024,1029,1028],"class_list":["post-924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-clean","tag-creates","tag-laundry","tag-petition","tag-rao","tag-residential","tag-subsidize"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=924"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":926,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924\/revisions\/926"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}