The best lessons are learned through experience. That doesn’t make learning from your mistakes any easier, however. Reality can come crashing down in a hard blow.

Just a few months ago, students signed a list for apartments in Coronado Place, envisioning spacious bedrooms, glamorous wood floors and some of the nicest apartments available in the area.

Those students recently found out that they won’t be able to move in until several weeks after school begins.

It is a hard lesson to learn, but an important one. In leasing, contracts and deposits are important, not putting a name on a list.

However, the lack of contracts does not excuse Amrit and Amy Gill, the owners of Coronado Place, from trying to remedy the situation. It is in their best interest to keep the potential residents happy, or at least content, until the apartments are completed.

For some students, crashing in friends’ apartments in Lindell Towers might be enough to provide a place to sleep during those long weeks.

However, for other students, the announcement of the delay means homelessness. Some would-be residents of Coronado Place are from distant states, possibly even foreign countries, with little knowledge of the St. Louis area, much less friends in Lindell Towers willing to let them move in for several weeks. Without a place to go or even store their furniture, these students need more than just the ability to “visit” friends in Lindell Towers.

These are apartments, not dorm rooms. That means that furniture-couches, tables, televisions and beds-must be stored while the apartments are completed. There is no room in friends’ apartments for two sets of furniture

The Gills must do more to accommodate those students, helping to find temporary housing and storage.

First, they should provide storage options. There are a number of public storage facilities where the Gills could arrange for special rates, or even pay the storage fees.

Or, perhaps the owners could let students move in their furniture and other belongings before the apartments are livable. Just because the apartments don’t have electricity or other necessities for living does not mean they can’t be used to store furniture.

Second, the Gills should help students find temporary housing. Perhaps the Water Tower Inn could provide temporary housing for some of the students who cannot stay with friends. This option would require coordination between the University, the Gills and the students; however, it would probably be the best option. Perhaps the University could subsidize part of the cost of the rooms, so the students would only have to pay half price. Affordable, close by and, best yet, on the route of the Billiken shuttle from Frost campus to the Health Sciences campus, the hotel might be the best option.

With Saint Louis University’s housing filled to the brim and few choices existing off campus, the future residents of Coronado Place have to bite the bullet and make other arrangements. The Gills, in an effort to keep their residents happy and maintain their good relationship with the students of SLU, should do all they can to assist those students in finding temporary arrangements.