The housing crisis has garnered significant attention in the current Canadian discourse on international students. Increasing difficulties for students and average citizens in finding housing has been one of the major justifications for cuts in international student numbers in Canada. Nonetheless, Newfoundland and Labrador can expect to have almost similar levels if not more students coming to its few institutions, whether St. John’s can host these students is another question.
In a recent conversation with Mahbub Alam, the MUNSU Executive of Finance and an International Student living for almost four and a half years in Newfoundland, he shared his dismal experience living off-campus in St. John’s. Alam came to Newfoundland in 2020 and, as he recalled, there were better times.
“As students with deferred admission started coming and MUN increased enrollments, the housing situation began to worsen,” he noted. The situation wasn’t just about a lack of houses, however, as Alam said, “Landlords began to jack up prices when they saw more options for renting out the houses. Maybe it was simple market economics but the increases were abysmal in most cases and it is still continuing to this day where rooms that we once saw for 350 or 400 dollars are now all 600 at least.”
A sharp increase in the cost of living has not coincided with increased income and opportunity here. As a result, students are put in a more vulnerable position with landlords having much more leverage over them, especially with incoming international students who do not have enough connections in the province.
Leverages are becoming more and more obvious with the way sudden rent increases are being applied. Alam continued with his experience,
“We had a landlord change and the new landlord, a MUN faculty, decided to jump up the prices and we didn’t have any options of moving out immediately. Sometimes amenities such as the washer were not working for months and the landlord didn’t take steps to repair anything for that time. Our rent increases were served abruptly and we had to pay for parking as well, which was not charged for previously.”
This kind of situation is all too common now in student housing around MUN, with students having little control over the situation owing to their precarious housing conditions and sometimes a lack of awareness of the rights accorded to them.
As we go through the summer session, Paton and MacPherson College will not be available for students and many international students, like myself, will need to find off-campus housing in this expensive market or consider an even more expensive flight home.
While the situation is slightly better outside of town in Mount Pearl, Paradise, Torbay etc, there aren’t nearly enough public transportation services available connecting them to the city, making it a tough option for students. This increases the pressure on the St. John’s housing market especially in the summer, leading to more students living in precarious housing conditions such as room sharing and even homelessness.
I had the opportunity to speak with Professor Mehmet Efe Caman from Memorial’s Political Science Department on the relationship between the international student cap and the housing crisis. Professor Caman was quite candid, saying, “I believe that implementing caps on international students and related measures may yield some short-term statistical adjustments, but they will not address the underlying structural issues contributing to the housing crisis. Canada’s focus should instead be on bolstering its construction sector and implementing effective regulations in the housing market to assist prospective homebuyers.” That focus is very much missing here in Newfoundland and Labrador.
With the pressure of increased tuition in the university, the options for university students to be able to live a normal life will continue to shrink unless the government and the private sector can work to revive the construction sector and support students in offsetting their costs for studies rather than burdening them with more expenses every step of the way.
For students, the situation might seem a bit bleak but knowing your rights can often go a long way toward ensuring housing security. You can find more about your rights here at https://www.gov.nl.ca/dgsnl/landlord-tenant/ and https://www.stjohns.ca/en/living-in-st-johns/resources/Documents/Your-Rights-and-Responsibilities-as-a-Tenant.pdf.