me in my own apartment!
About the Author
Hi! I'm Arya Kamat. I'm a senior at the University of Michigan, studying Public Health Sciences and Writing on a pre-med track. I am born and raised in Ann Arbor and have lived here all my life. For this capstone, I wanted to combine my interests in public health and student journalism to mix narrative, interviews, and news into a long-form investigative piece.
I am passionate about writing in all forms, as well as reading and editing. I care a lot about uplifting voices and reflecting on how our experiences have shaped us. I've also gotten to write in college, as an Assistant Editor for What the F Magazine and a Senior Editor for Michigan in Color in The Michigan Daily. In my free time, I enjoy exploring new boba shops on campus, arts and crafts, or reading a good book (please send me book recs!)
The Story Behind This
Having experienced an apartment this year that felt nothing like a home and more like a burden, I became curious about how housing insecurity affects people’s bodies. We are all aware of the rising Ann Arbor housing prices, and how much terrible housing affects one’s stability and physiology, be it their sleep, stress hormones, health, and ability to function in day-to-day life.
This is the central question driving my immersion journalism project: What does housing insecurity look like in a city defined by education and relative affluence, and who bears its health consequences? I am interested in the ways housing instability manifests in less visible forms, among students, renters, service workers, and longtime residents, and how those experiences contrast with Ann Arbor's more reputable image but also add to the conversation of housing as a social determinant of health. I also plan to interview people in charge of policies or recent construction developments or perhaps even leasing themselves, to get a broader sense of what informs housing as a whole, while integrating these humanistic perspectives.
I am the right person for this project because I am already inside it. I am not a journalist infiltrating Ann Arbor's housing crisis from the outside but am a student who lived in substandard housing during ongoing construction on 4th Avenue and has dealt with subpart aspects of housing affecting my health and wellbeing; I am also an Ann Arbor native and can speak to experiences like my family’s decisions in where to live due to the high costs of living in certain parts of the city (and beyond).
This project matters because it goes against some of Ann Arbor's self-flattering narrative. A city that prides itself on progressivism and equity must be able to withstand scrutiny of who its housing market actually serves, as well as who it quietly, systematically excludes. Between 2022 and 2025, homelessness in the Ann Arbor area increased by 77 percent. That statistic sits uneasily beside the city’s reputation, revealing a gap between image and lived experience. This essay inhabits that gap, tracing how housing insecurity persists not at the margins, but within and beneath the surface of an otherwise affluent, educated community.