Moving to Berkeley, Hints?

[Michael Paoli]

Quoting Erich Schubert <erich@debian.org>:

> I'll be moving to Berkeley for spring term using a scholarship.

> Do you have any hints for me to get started?

> A quite important question is about housing. Since I got this
> scholarship at short notice, we won't get a place in the housing
> facilities.

University of California at Berkeley?
If so, also check out the USCA:
http://www.usca.org/
If potentially interested, it's best to apply, and get on the waiting
list(s).  For Spring, there's likely a better probability of getting
in on shorter notice/wait than in Fall.
It will generally be both below "market" rates, and less expensive
than the student housing run by the University of California at Berkeley. 
There's also a commercial service in Berkeley,
Homefinders Rental Service:
http://www.homefindersbulletin.com/
Since their service is free to landlords, most landlords in (and near to)
Berkeley typically don't spend any money to advertise rentals, often
only listing with Homefinders.

Neighborhoods vary, as do qualities of units (and landlords and managers),
so might be best to (particularly when dealing with rental other than
from UC or USCA) have someone familiar with the locality and such (and
preferably including at least one of the planned renters, if feasible)
check out the place, etc.

Rents in/around Berkeley, and the Bay Area in general, aren't cheap.

> P.S. I'll arrive on January 13th - we could have a Key-signing meeting
> a couple of days afterwards (mostly depending on when I have found a
> place to stay)

There's a San Francisco Bay Area keysigning information and discussion
list:
http://zer0.org/mailman/listinfo/ba-keysign/
Might want to match up with an event there ... or create
one for Berkeley at some suitably convenient time.
Perhaps combine it with a BAD event/meeting (shotgun rules, and all that).
The last Berkeley non-BAD non-BUUG <URL:http://www.buug.org/> keysigning
had a fairly small attendance, ... so might work better to have keysigning
combined with a BAD meeting or some other event.