ASMSU and East Lansing will unite landlords, police and students in the first MSU Housing Fair.

The fair will be held in the Union Ballroom from 2-6 p.m. Wednesday with tables representing different aspects of living so students can knowledgeably choose a place to live.

“Everybody who you can imagine who might be relevant to the housing issue will be there,” said Kevin Glandon, ASMSU’s director of community affairs.

“Everybody’s going to have some different aspect of it.”

Glandon said the fair will cost about $5,000. ASMSU, MSU’s undergraduate student government, and East Lansing will each take care of $2,000, and the other costs will be covered from companies represented in the fair.

Dan Kittle, president of the Community Relations Coalition in East Lansing, said a housing fair is a good idea to make sure students are well informed about their choices.

He said if students understand all of their housing options, from co-op to fraternity houses, they can feel more confident about the decision they made.

“The more students know about the community around them, the more they’re going to treat it with respect,” Kittle said.

Kittle and coalition intern Helen Parks have been working with officials from ASMSU to get the project under way.

Kittle and Parks went to the University of Michigan to observe their housing fair, which brings in thousands of students each year.

Kittle said while they learned a lot, they only expect to bring in a few hundred people.

“We hate to say we’ve learned from the University of Michigan, but we did this time,” he said.

“It will definitely grow to be well over a thousand people attending in the future.”

Glandon said no one will be signing leases during the fair, and its main intent is to inform students on their options.

“It should be pretty interesting for someone who’s not even looking,” he said.

Parents of freshmen students should have received letters in the mail informing them of the fair, Kittle said.

He also said it has been advertised on several radio stations so people are aware they have the opportunity.

Glandon said since nothing like the fair has ever been done before, they’re not sure what to expect.

“There’s been some ideas like this in the past, but they’ve never been informational,” he said, stressing no agreements between landowners and tenants will be made at the housing fair.

ASMSU took the lead from other universities who’ve employed the idea, and he encourages many students to attend.

“Some campuses have done well over a thousand students,” he said.

Kittle said it’s important for students to attend because they will be looking for housing soon.

“The timing of this is critical,” he said.