Creative ‘flats’ help students get ahead
Casey Sheard’s residence has all the homely touches befitting Wellington’s student lifestyle – it also happens to be a 1984 Toyota Hiace van. ‘‘He’s called Lance,’’ she says. Sheard converted ‘‘Lance’’ into a house-van in November 2015 and has been living in it since then.
Folders and textbooks sit in stacks on her desk and soft-blue fairy lights glow overhead. In the cluttered kitchen perches a stovetop coffee press along with small glass jars of rice and pasta.
‘‘Anything you can cook with one pot or a frying pan … I can do that.’’
Sheard says her decision to avoid flatting while she studied graphic design simply ‘‘made sense’’.
‘‘As students, we’re always strapped for cash. We’re told that until we get a proper job, it will be hard to do the things we want to do. The cost of rent in Wellington was limiting the amount of time I could spend exploring the world.’’
Tertiary students in the capital are increasingly feeling the squeeze of high rental prices and limited accommodation options. According to advocacy organisations, the average student rent has risen by 100 per cent over the past 15 years, to nearly $200 a week now.
Victoria University student Jessica Wilson says the city’s healthiest flats to live in are priced well above the living costs provided by her student loan.
She found it particularly stressful to find a flat this year. ‘‘I had to resort to lower standards and a far higher budget.’’
Another Victoria student, who chose not to be named, admits that she spent two months living out of her car and couch-surfing before she found anywhere affordable to rent.
‘‘This, in turn, impacted my grades, which really sucked.’’
Bearing this in mind, it is no wonder students like Sheard are thinking outside the box.
But how did Sheard manage day to day while living in Lance?
She talks of her ‘‘life-hacks’’ – sourcing water from Petone’s artesian spring, showering or using the spa at Freyberg Pool, and stopping off at laundromats to do her washing.
By night, she would park in friends’ driveways or by the sea. Red Rocks on the south coast was a favourite stop.
‘‘I gained so much extra time,’’ Sheard says. ‘‘I began reading, writing and painting, rather than staring at a glowing [TV] screen.’’
Her favourite part of living in Lance was waking up and being able to make a coffee and enjoy the sunrise without leaving her bed.
Despite the benefits of her lifestyle, such creative solutions aren’t for everyone. Some people were quickly put off her lifestyle, she says, by the idea of the spending so much time alone. Not to mention having to do extra chores or the lack of basic facilities.
‘‘It would be a stretch for some people,’’ she concedes. ‘‘Perhaps if there were campsites or mini-communities that provided the basic amenities, then more people would try this out.’’
So will the Wellington rental situation improve any time soon? The current rent price index suggests firmly otherwise, but there is hope.
Massey Wellington Students Association president Tom Pringle concedes student accommodation in the capital is currently a ‘‘big problem’’.
‘‘I don’t think rent is going to become affordable; however, I think there will be a change in the way people live.’’
Pringle would like to see more sharing of space and resources. ‘‘I do support creative solutions around flatting. Thinking creatively to make the flatting experience better builds character and can be a lot of fun.’’
Meanwhile, for debt-free Sheard, her days of waking up to the sun at Red Rocks are now over – she’s sold the van and has set her eyes on a new adventure – shifting to Mafia Island in Tanzania, where she plans to open a beach camp.
This time, she says, it will be ‘‘utter paradise’’ – the kind that doesn’t have supermarkets or traffic. ‘‘I have learnt a lot,’’ she smiles, ‘‘now I’m super-excited for the new journey.’’