HOLLAND — In my first months at The Sentinel, I spent hours with housing experts and the residents of Ottawa County affected by a near-impossible market. The resulting series, “Home for the Holidays,” launched in December.
To close the series, I thought I’d share what inspired me.
The first thing I asked my editor when I accepted a reporting position with The Holland Sentinel wasn’t even about the job.
“Do you have any apartment hunting tips?” I replied to the email subjected “Eek!” about accepting the job offer.
“Apartment tips,” she replied with a list of apartment complex names and links. “It’s a great question. I’m going to be honest, Holland is a tough area, especially on a single income.”
I was completely out of my element. Until September 2024, I’d only lived with my family or in campus housing. The only bill I had to worry about was groceries.
I started by googling some of the apartment complexes. The results shocked me. There was a one-bed, one-bath for $1,350 a month plus utilities. Could I afford that alongside a new car payment and student loans?
I headed to Zillow, flipping through listing after listing. Soon, my search area included Grand Rapids, Grandville and Allendale. Before I knew it, I’d gone through everything within 30 minutes of the office. With just a month before I started at The Sentinel, I was manifesting an apartment into existence on a hope and a prayer.
On a muggy evening in August, I sat my parents down at a table in our backyard and set my laptop in front of them. I’d only found three options, and each was near the high end of my budget or above. Two were in apartment complexes, one the upper part of a home.
My mom and I planned a trip to Michigan centered on finding an apartment. I had 18 days before I needed to be moved in and settled to start work. It didn’t start out well. The first morning, I learned the third apartment on my list was no longer available. One of the apartment communities had no vacancies, despite the online listing. A woman in the leasing office of the last complex informed us the only unit type available was drastically outside my budget.
I left feeling utterly defeated.
When we arrived back at our hotel, I asked my mom for some space to figure out my next steps. The weight of failing my first adulting test was heavy. I sat on the queen bed and cried into white pillows. After some deep breaths and a few tissues, I grabbed a pen and notepad off the nightstand and called seven apartment communities in and around Holland.
I got nowhere.
In a last ditch effort, I went back to the first email from my boss and clicked on one of the links she provided.
I’d looked at it before — a small one-bed, one-bath. It wasn’t bad, but it was covered in wood paneling. I realized I couldn’t be picky about looks anymore. I followed the link to Zillow and searched the leasing company website.
As the website loaded, there it was.
“Spacious 2 Bedroom Apartment in Holland.” By some miracle, it was cheaper than the one-bedrooms that fell through, and only $100 more than the wood paneled monstrosity. I sent an email to the leasing company right away.
My last day in Michigan, I toured the apartment (and it’s smaller and uglier counterpart to please my mom). I only took two pictures during the tour: one of the bathroom and one of the kitchen. I turned to the leasing agent.
“I think this is the one.”
— Cassidey Kavathas is the politics and court reporter at The Holland Sentinel. Contact her at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @cassideykava.
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