UVic students face housing crunch
Students’ society calling on B.C. government to make it easier to build housing on campus
University of Victoria student Ashley Goodwin spent a stressful year looking before she found housing — a 400-square-foot apartment for which she pays $1,000 a month — for the school year.
“I love Victoria, but finding a place here sucks,” said Goodwin, a third-year psychology major. “When you do find one, you don’t have any stability because everyone does year-to-year leases.”
About 70 per cent of UVic’s 21,000 students come from outside Greater Victoria, and the region’s vacancy rate — at 0.5 per cent, among the lowest in the country — can make it difficult to find affordable housing.
Camosun College students are a different story. About 80 per cent of the college’s 9,800 students come from Greater Victoria.
Anmol Swaich, director of campaigns and community relations for the UVic Students’ Society, said housing is a challenge for students across B.C.
The society, along with those at the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University and other universities, is trying to persuade the provincial government to make it easier to build more housing on campus.
As it stands, universities, agents of the province, are not allowed to accumulate debt.
Swaich said it’s hoped the province can empower the institutions to take on debt to build housing. The debt would pay for itself through student rents.
The university has 2,300 beds of single-student housing — single and double dormitories, apartments and townhouses — and 181 family units.
Gayle Gorrill, vice-president finance at UVic, said building more housing on campus is a top priority for the administration, which is in discussions with the province on how to respond to housing demand.
“Expanded student housing will increase affordability and access for all British Columbians,” Gorrill said.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Advanced Education said the province is examining how barriers can be removed to create more housing for students.
For several years, UVic has been able to guarantee on-campus housing to all of its first-year students, who number about 3,000.
Claire Fioretti, 18, and Ryan Verburg, 18, both from Calgary, are happy to be staying on campus.
“There was never any doubt about going into residence,” Verburg said. “I wanted to meet people before my classes started.”
Kathryn MacLeod, director of residence services, said first-year students typically take up about 80 to 90 per cent of the single-person beds on campus.
She encourages students to look first at on-campus housing, noting that places often come open in the first few months of the term; on Tuesday, about five spots were available. If there are no available rooms, the university directs students to sites where rental accommodation for students is advertised.
Saanich Coun. Judy Brownoff said the municipality is generally supportive of people who rent rooms or secondary suites to students.
She wondered whether oncampus housing is the best answer, noting that some students have told her they prefer living in the community.
“Everyone just assumes they all want to live on campus,” Brownoff said. “Some of them don’t.
“We should start by asking students how many of them actually want to live on campus.”