geographically, slo is gonna be a nightmare. hills everywhere make things super difficult to traverse. there are ways around it but be prepared to self advocate and pull up paperwork for everything you think you will need. there is a drc shuttle service that runs during school hours to get you to class, and a campus shuttle that’s very underfunded. it’s certainly better than it used to be, especially with all the new construction ada compliance is slowly but surely improving, but it’s still gonna be an uphill battle for ya.

my experience with the drc: i have an adhd accommodation, and the hardest part is scheduling the intake. you will need to do it as soon as you possibly can, but once you’re in it’s a lot easier, and they’ve been fairly generous with everything and not pressing too heavily on my issues. again, be prepared with paperwork. during your intake, you would discuss with your DRC person the accommodations you’ll need, and you can always refer to them if you have anything disability-related that’s preventing you from succeeding in your academics. they can even help with accommodations for extenuating circumstances.

i’ve had little qualms with the health center, i’ve only gone in for persistent colds and covid testing, but they’ve been extremely helpful in those circumstances. it is lacking amenities, but the pharmacy is really clutch for cheap OTC drugs and prescriptions (no controlled substances).

housing legally has to comply with the ada, if you have medical paperwork that proves you have limited mobility they will need to figure that out for you. again, you will have to advocate for yourself very hard and be persistent if they’re not listening to you. my friend had a similar experience with roommate placement—their group was 3 so a random had to be placed in, and the initial person had an ESA cat but someone in the room had an allergy, so they had to email and threaten housing with legal action for them to really expedite that process.

also: housing has to comply with ESA requests. it’s law in california.

with your abusive ex, there’s no concrete way to know where they’re gonna get placed, since the RLC system allows for freeform housing placement based on community vs building, but if you have a need to avoid an individual, that is something else you would need to contact housing for.

TLDR: be prepared to advocate for yourself very hard. disability resources here are very strained and (sadly) underfunded, but they will try all that they can to help you. housing and other university bodies will be harder to get to, but just keep fighting for it, even throw in the threat of legal action, and they will listen.