Student groups are worried about how the housing crisis will affect students in college and graduate school
As the school year quickly approaches, student advocacy groups are waiting for the Nova Scotia government to release its student housing strategy. They are worried that post-secondary students will have to find their own housing support for another school year.
The Department of Advanced Education was supposed to release the province’s first student housing strategy this past spring, but it hasn’t done so and hasn’t said when it will.
In an interview on Tuesday, Georgia Saleski, the executive director of Students Nova Scotia, said, “We’ve been waiting for the provincial housing strategy for a while now.””I haven’t heard anything about it, and we’re mostly worried about the upcoming fall semester.”
The province is working on more than just a plan for student housing. It’s part of a larger provincial housing strategy that was also supposed to be released this past spring. It will show how the government plans to deal with a crisis caused by rising prices and low supply.
Saleski said that the biggest problems for students are how expensive rentals are and how hard it is to find available rentals since residences fill up and have waiting lists.
And it’s not just hard to find a place to live for the semester.
She said, “I think the real problem is that where you live determines whether or not you can go to school, and we’ve seen that over and over again.”
“I think that’s why the housing crisis has such a big effect on students, both in terms of money and in terms of being able to go to college or university in the province.”
Last September, CBC News talked about students who couldn’t find a place to live even though classes had already started. Saleski is afraid that this school year will be just like the last one.
“Extremely difficult time,” says the department
The department in charge of postsecondary education wouldn’t say what was holding up the release of the strategy.
A department spokesperson wrote in an email, “We know that this is a very hard time for students and all Nova Scotians to find housing.”
“The recent floods and wildfires have made things even worse. We want students to know that everyone in government is working hard to find solutions and move quickly on them.
Spokesperson Ameeta Vohra pointed to previous announcements, such as two new residences at Nova Scotia Community College campuses in Dartmouth and one in Stellarton, as well as a $5 million housing project in Sydney that will include student housing.
A NSCC representative told CBC News in an email that construction is on schedule for the Pictou, Akerley, and Ivany campuses (September 2024 and September 2025, respectively).
Anubhav Gupta, who is the vice-president of advocacy for the Saint Mary’s University Students’ Association, says that many students are worried about finding a place to live in September.
He said that the rental market is forcing many people to move farther away from Halifax and commute, or to live with more people in smaller spaces.
He said, “We’re just worried that, since they’re in a vulnerable position and we don’t have a specific plan to help them, they might have to do things that may not be best for them in the long run.”
Gupta said that international students face more problems because they are new to the country and usually don’t know much about the rental market in Nova Scotia. He said that scams often get them.
“We’ve also heard of places where people have already paid their deposits, but when the students show up, those places don’t exist,” Gupta said.
“This is a big problem for international students because they have no other options. Like, if they come here, they can’t say, “What will they do?”
As an international student himself, he said that he almost had to stop going to school in Canada because he couldn’t find a place to live.
We need more help outside of campu
Student leaders say that help from outside of campus is needed to find solutions more quickly.
Saleski said that Students Nova Scotia hopes the strategy will include off-campus housing officers to help guide students through the process of renting and tell them what their rights are.
Gupta said that students could find safe places to live and avoid scammers if there was a central database of verified rentals.
Both of them said that they hope the strategy will be made public by the fall.
Saleski said, “This is something that both the students and the province need in order to take action in this situation.”
“Housing problems are happening all over the country. And this would be a chance for Nova Scotia to show how great they are.”
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