The Department of Public Safety HelpVan, a free service for students with car trouble, recently extended its services to the greek system. The new extension, although not openly advertised, has been in place since late last semester.

Douglas Houghton, program coordinator for DPS, said up until last semester, none of the HelpVan’s 200-300 calls per month were served in off-campus locations.

“Because of pressure from greek students, we decided to extend our service to greek houses,” Houghton said.

“Historically, we have been limited to geographic boundaries,” he said. “But recently, it’s become kind of a current issue.”

Although the HelpVan performs emergency services, Houghton said the service does not extend to off-campus locations because it would put DPS in direct competition with private Ames businesses.

“State agencies can’t be in competition with private business,” he said. “Moving the services out from campus has been a major concern. We are trying hard not to run afoul with private business.”

Houghton said private businesses in Ames have always been wary of the HelpVan.

“When the service was first started, we got resistance from local service stations,” he said.

However, Houghton said he feels DPS is justified in having the HelpVan serve the greek system because of the large percentage of Iowa State students living in the area.

“The bulk of people in that very limited area were students, and we would be serving mainly students by extending the service there,” he said.

The feasibility of the service extension was discussed by a group including Houghton, DPS Director Loras Jaeger and Warren Madden, vice president of Business and Finance. Houghton said they decided serving the greek system was the right thing to do.

“We looked at if we’d be overloaded, and if we could handle the new calls,” Houghton said, “and overall, we decided we could reach out to the greek houses.”

Despite Houghton’s assertion that the greek system currently is being served by the HelpVan, Adam Oris, president of the Interfraternity Council, said he has not been made aware of the fact.

“As far as I know, the HelpVan is not taking calls from the greek system,” he said.

Although greek houses technically are off-campus living, Oris said they do teeter on the balance of being on campus.

“We report to university officials about lots of our matters, so we are basically on campus,” Oris said. “We would really enjoy having the HelpVan available.”