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Some 30 students spent the night outside the mansion of University of California at Berkeley Chancellor Robert Berdahl Monday night to urge the university to work on affordable housing issues. 

The students are part of a coalition including the university's student government, a renters' advocacy group and the public interest group CalPIRG that is urging the university to support measures that insure that housing for students is close to the campus, livable and affordable. 

The students say that the university has many options it is not pursuing to provide housing opportunities to the students, including fund-raising for housing, and changing policies that prevent the university from financing housing. 

At the moment, according to student spokesman Andy Katz, the chancellor's mansion is the only housing the university provides that is on-campus. All student housing has to be self-financed, which means that only those living in the residence halls can finance housing. 

Some of the students say that unavailable housing provides an added stress that can prevent them from achieving their full academic potential.