In helping students find housing, ‘Mama Erin’ brings the TLC and hard-won street smarts

At a recent campus forum for UW-Madison students about housing options in the city, panelist Erin Warner paused the proceedings early on to secure more chairs for the overflow crowd and to make sure everyone knew about the free lunch buffet.

"I'm a mother," she told the students. "I want everyone to be fed and comfortable."

The statement could almost be Warner's job description. It's certainly her mantra.

Officially, Warner oversees Off-Campus Housing Services as an assistant director in the Division of University Housing. Unofficially, she strives to be everyone's Badger mom. In helping students negotiate Madison's complex and sometimes anxiety-inducing housing market, she brings to bear whatever is needed - TLC, common sense, tough love. Sometimes she sounds like a therapist, other times a 911 operator.

"OK, first I need you to take a deep breath and stop panicking," she told a distraught undergraduate who approached her at a recent housing forum at the Pres House. The student was having difficulty finding an affordable apartment.

"No one has ever gone homeless on my watch, and I'm not about to let you be the first," Warner told the student. "Mama Erin's got this."

'A big fan club'

The Division of University Housing established the Off-Campus Housing Services unit last year to help students and families navigate Madison's increasingly challenging, highly competitive housing market. The effort, which built on and enhanced a previous program in Campus and Visitor Relations, now has a designated office and full-time staff member.

Jeff Novak, associate vice chancellor for finance and administration and director of University Housing, brought Warner on board in April 2023 to get the re-envisioned program up and running. At the time, Warner was the administrator for the Honors Program in the College of Letters & Science. On the side - and informally - she often would jump onto the Facebook page for Badger Parents and Families and try to help people who had concerns or gripes. Sometimes that meant giving advice, other times debunking rumors. Warner is a UW-Madison alumna and the mother of two Badgers. She and her husband Jim have a daughter, Jamie, who graduated in May, and a son, Chase, a junior.

"As a parent herself, she had a wonderful way of communicating with other parents and responding to their fears and concerns with empathy and compassion but also facts and reason," Novak says. "Helping others was a clear passion for her, and she had developed a big fan club doing it."

Joselyn Diaz-Valdes, an assistant director in the Office of Student Financial Aid, says students can find it intimidating to reach out for help.

"Erin makes it easy because she's so approachable," Diaz-Valdes says. "And she's phenomenal in a crisis."

In their corner

Warner earned a bachelor's degree from UW-Madison in social welfare and sociology and a master's degree from Indiana University in social work. She approaches her job squarely from the perspective of someone who's been there, experienced that.

Between her two children, she's helped set budgets, navigated rent splits, monitored bedroom-picking lotteries and co-signed leases - even joint ones where she was liable for people she didn't know.

"Trust me, if there was a way to make it complicated, my Badgers found it," she says. "When I tell students and families that I've learned a lot of lessons the hard way, I truly mean it."

One time, Jamie and her roommates unwittingly signed two legally binding leases simultaneously for two different apartments.

"That was so crazy," says Jamie, now a clinical research coordinator at the UW Carbone Cancer Center. "When you're 18 or 19, you don't always know what you're doing, or what you're signing, or what you're getting yourself into. That's what's so great about my mom. She's so knowledgeable and so willing to help."

Jamie is fine sharing her mom with 50,000-plus students.

"I'm lucky enough to be 15 minutes from home," she says. "But if your family is thousands of miles away, she can be your Wisconsin mom."

Warner has an office at Slichter Residence Hall but prefers meeting students wherever they are - the Starbucks at Smith Residence Hall is a favorite spot. She gets the word out about her services by staffing information tables at dining halls and appearing at forums, workshops and other events across campus. ("I insert myself in key places," she says.) Earlier this semester, she coordinated the campus's annual housing forum. More than 2,500 students attended - a record.

Warner often meets with students one on one. (You can email her at [email protected]. ) She reviews budgets and housing options with students, looking for ways to help them save on rent. She encourages them to differentiate between wants and needs, throwing some hard truths their way - "That rooftop pool may be super cool, but you'll pay for it." She offers suggestions on how to find properties that might make the most sense for them.

"I want students to feel like they have someone in their corner who understands that this process can be very stressful."

And to all the Badger parents out there across the country or across the world, Warner wants you to know she's on it.

"I hope that if one of my children ever ends up in your backyard, you'd do the same," she says.

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