BOSTON -- Some landlords in Boston are offering vacant apartments to hurricane survivors for free.

NewsCenter 5's Kelley Tuthill spoke with landlord Eric Stevens, who is making three apartments available at no cost for one year.

"If something like that happened to us, we would want someone to help us out. We are doing what your grandmother taught us. Do the right thing," Stevens said. "They are 1,200 square foot four-bedroom apartments. They are de-leaded, and they are brand new construction. They have eat in kitchens and washers and dryers. They come with parking."

Stevens has a friend at Bob's Discount Furniture, who also offered to help the evacuees.

"They said, 'How much furniture do you need?' They committed to it and the furniture will be here in about 48 hours," he said.

The evacuees will be allowed to keep the furniture once they find more permanent housing.

Boston has a 4 percent vacancy rate, so Eric Boyer, from BostonApartments.com has put a page on his Web site to encourage other landlords to offer housing.

"Please, if you have a space, and it is going to stay vacant, why not fill it with a nice warm body? It can't hurt. It can only help and strengthen us," Boyer said.

The site features hundreds of real estate agencies and landlords in Boston. Some landlords are using the site to offer housing the evacuees from the Gulf Coast.

Tulane Students Find Shelter In Boston

More than 300 Massachusetts students were enrolled in Louisiana schools. The University of Massachusetts system is offering admission, as is Babson College, Simmons College, and Franklin Pierce College in New Hampshire.

NewsCenter 5's Amalia Barreda reported that Tufts University will offer visiting status. Boston University is working on a plan and Harvard is considering its options.

As for housing, some will live at home, while others may find ways to cram into the dorms, still others are being helped by local landlords. Two students found a welcome mat at Steven's apartments in Brighton.

Students Charlie Greenwald and Josh Singer were supposed to start school at Tulane University this fall. They plan to go to Boston University instead. The school has registered about 150 students who were supposed to attend Tulane.

"We don't really have anything except for what we were wearing," Greenwald said.

"None of us had Internet set up or TV or anything, and we didn't know how bad it was going to be," Singer said. "We've had to evacuate every year since I've been at Tulane."

"This is really the first good news we've had in two weeks," Greenwald said.