PressHerald.MaineToday.com – By Justin Ellis, Staff Writer
Micah Blizzard’s belongings mingle with those of his roommate in their Portland Hall dorm room — DVDs, rows of textbooks, empty pizza boxes and a few unicorns.
His roommate, Hannah, admits she has a strange obsession with the mythical animals.
What’s strange to their friends is not that a guy and girl are sharing a room, but that two siblings who live together don’t kill each other.
“A lot of people think it’s weird that we can get along,” Hannah Blizzard said.
The brother and sister are two of about 50 men and women who are part of the University of Southern Maine’s gender-neutral housing program, which allows any student to sign a contract to live with another student, regardless of sex.
While single-sex dormitories were once the norm, campus housing is now often co-ed by floor or by room. Throwing open the doors to dorm rooms eliminates one of the last barriers between the sexes on college campuses.