Student housing struggle hits breaking point as prices soar, vacancy drops

As September rolls around once again, university students are flocking to Nova Scotia, and HRM in particular, for the new school year.

As over 50,000 students overwhelm the peninsula, many are in need of safe, affordable student housing.

But for many, that is getting harder and harder to find.

“Right now the vacancy rate in the South end, where the two largest universities in our province are, is at one per cent,” says Clancy McDaniel, Executive Director of Students Nova Scotia, a non-profit group that represents 20,000 post-secondary students across the province.

McDaniel says this low vacancy rate means prices are increasing, both in terms of on and off-campus housing options.

“You have students that opt to live in residence, which is very popular with first year students,” she tells NEWS 95.7's The Todd Veinotte Show.

For residence students, Dalhousie's cheapest meal plan and shared room in Howe Hall add up to $8,795 for the school year, averaging about $1100 a month.

“Residence is not exactly an inexpensive option,” says McDaniel, adding that residence can cost up to $1680 a month on the high end.

For those who are going the cheaper route in residence, this may lead to food insecurity, as the minimum meal plan provides only 10 meals a week.

“You're picking and choosing which days of the week you're having more than one meal, which is not necessarily ideal for student success,” McDaniel says.

At other universities in the province, prices can be even higher.

“Rural campuses are able to have much more of a monopoly on housing for students because there's less availability in a smaller town,” says McDaniel, who is herself a graduate of St. FX University.  “At the lowest end you're paying $1,300 a month to live in Antigonish, and then at the highest end you're paying $1,800 a month.”

McDaniel says unlike tuition increases from year to year, the cost of housing and meal plans are not regulated by the government.

“That cost of residence, that cost of your meal plan can go up or down however much your university wants,” she adds.

On top of that, McDaniel says student assistance from the province doesn't cover the price of housing.

“It doesn't matter if you're living in residence or off campus, doesn't matter if you're living in Antigonish or Halifax, they're estimating your monthly costs to be around $750 per month,” she says.

Of course, not all students choose to live on residence. But for many upper-year or graduate students who decide to live off campus, the options are equally daunting.

“A lot of students you'll get five, six or seven friends, you'll go in and you'll live in a house,” McDaniel says. “Many of these houses have been converted from family homes with two or three bedrooms, into houses that will accommodate as many tenants as possible.”

McDaniel says these converted houses are still costing students about $600 a month, and are often overcrowded and not up to code.

“They're converting dining rooms, they're converting living rooms. The apartment that I lived in last year, there was an entrance to the apartment in my bedroom,” she says.

The student advocate thinks students who don't want to live like sardines are picking a third option: living further away.

But this presents its own challenges.

“Students are caught in a catch 22 of, 'Is it worth paying the extra money to live closer to campus, or will I have less time to get what I need done by commuting?'” McDaniel says.

To offset the cost of housing, students are also working more to make ends meet.

McDaniel hopes that developers in HRM start to plan for the future of student housing, before the situation gets even worse.

“A lot of students, especially the students who are concerned about their budget, are working on campus in order to get by,” she says.

If Halifax is aiming to retain more students after graduation, McDaniel doesn't think pricing them out of the rental market is the way to do it.

“As the prices are going up in the South end, I think it's really crowding out our lower income students who should have every opportunity to be able to successfully attend our wonderful institutions that we're lucky to have in Halifax.”