Mcgill housing backlogs into EVO
Students given “temporary residence” waiting list
Mcgill’s housing system ha ve historically allowed numbers to exceeded the capacity of the r esidence system. This year, Mcgill partner ed with E VO to meet application demands in time for the school year.
Mcgill guarantees housing for all first year students aged 2 2 years and under . The student’s residence is determined by a lottery system, using randomly generated numbers assigned to students who ha ve paid their residence deposit fee. Students who are able to pay the deposit in adv ance r eceive a lower number, which incr eases their chance of being placed in their pr eferred accommodation. However, despite paying a $1500 deposit, a secur e placement in r esidence is not a guarantee for all first year students.
Temporary housing
Every year, around 100 to 200 r esidence applicants are waitlisted on temporary housing assignments , then ar e given permanent assignments as r esidence spaces become available before the school y ear. This summer, incoming students wer e given “tempo - rary housing” status until mid-august, which left them less than two weeks to mak e travel arrangements and move into residence.
This backlog w as a r esult of an administrative system intentionally accepting mor e residence requests than the a vailable capacity. Mcgill depends on a certain number of cancellations to be able to meet demands for accommodation, which means that the lot - tery system accepts r esidence applications regardless of capacity , e xpecting many students to ultimately cancel their applications . Until this happens , however, the number of applications exceeds the housing space available in Mcgill’s residences. While students are guaranteed a place in M cgill residence, they do not know where they will be placed.
According to Monique Lauzon, a marketing and nutrition consultant for M cgill Housing and Student Services, this kind of delay is a common occurrence.
“Many more students apply for admission to Mcgill (and request residences) than actually end up attending M cgill in the fall,” wrote Lauzon in an email to The Daily. “Once residence rooms are assigned in the lottery , there are always some students assigned a ‘temporary residence’ or who are put on a type of waiting list while we wait for cancellations to come in up until classes start .”
However, it appears that M cgill received fewer cancellations this year than in previous years. As a result, students with temporary housing status remained on the waiting list longer than usual.
Phoebe Pannier, a U 0 student in the fac - ulty of Arts, shared her experience of getting stuck in bureaucratic limbo.
“Waiting w as the worst, ” she told The Daily .“It was beyond in convenient to not have any information about my living situation. I didn’ t know for sure what I needed to bring, or if I was going to be living with anyone else.”
Additionally, students who received temporary housing status do not have the option to choose between a single or a double room, and have been calling themselves the “rezjects,” having been backlogged in the system.
Partnership with EVO
In response to the housing delays over the summer , M cgill partner ed with EVO, a privately-owned housing complex run by a joint venture between two equity firms: Campus Cr est Communities Inc, and Beaumont Partners SA.
“Under Student Housing and Hospitality Services [students living in EVO] are entitled to the same programming and community services as [the] other r esidence students,” Lauzon e xplained. This means that EVO will be part of M cgill’s residence programming for the coming school y ear, with access to floor fellows and r epresentation on Inter-residence Council.
EVO is curr ently housing 163 first y ear students in a dormitory -style housing complex located downtown on S herbrooke street. EVO is an upscale living space with private bathrooms, an indoor heated pool, a game room, a 24-hour gym, and v arious other luxury amenities . F or an individual student, rent for a double occupancy r oom at EVO starts at $ 775 per month, excluding meal costs and other costs of living . Mcgill students at E VO are paying $1100 per month for the same double room
Mcgill residence fees
Mcgill’s r esidence fees ar e notoriously high. Accor ding to an article b y the Huffington Post, Mcgill has the most expensive on- campus housing in Canada, at an average of $1, 885 in living costs including utilities in 2015 , followed by University of Toronto. This is partly due to the mandatory meal plan that must be purchased along with residence accommodation. M any students do not finish the meal plan in their first year, and carry over their credits to the next year.
This has spark ed criticism fr om many students, with advocates of a voluntary meal plan emphasizing the v alue of responsibility and choice.
“I think I’m sa ving money b y buying my own groceries although sometimes I end up [...] buying food on campus ,” said D arian Mccabe, a U0 student in the faculty of Arts . Juliane Chartr and, also a U0 Arts student, echoed the sentiment.
“I think that at our age , being for the first time alone , [...] being r esponsible for our meals is a har d, but important experience,” she said. “I think that the meal plan is a very bad idea, [ since] y ou pay too much at the end.”
When ask ed about futur e housing partnerships, Lauzon replied “There are many factors which affect the demand for residence rooms and it can vary from year to y ear. W e may or may not need additional rooms in the futur e. I f we do require rooms and EVO has rooms available, then there is that possibility.”
“It was beyond inconvenient to not have any information about my living situation.” Phoebe Pannier, Mcgill U0 student