Housing still a big problem for students in Belleville

Housing options on Loyalist College’s campus accommodate some students, but many others are in crowded off-campus housing. Photo by Robert Champagne, QNet News

By Robert Champagne

BELLEVILLE – As Belleville’s housing shortage continues, Loyalist College students with tight budgets and even tighter timelines are at the epicentre of the struggle to find a place to live – but people are making do.

Across Ontario, the housing crisis has made headlines as homelessness grows.

Last September, Loyalist took steps to mitigate the trouble that international students have been having finding accommodation by doubling up some apartments in the residence complex. Normally, the six-bedroom apartments found in the old residence house a single student to a bedroom. But since September, there are two students in some of the rooms.

The floor plan of a standard residence unit had six bedrooms which normally have one student each. Image courtesy of loyalistcollege.com

The six-bedroom suites are the cheaper option offered on the college’s campus. There is also a townhouse complex. Rooms in it have not been doubled up.

Residence manager Chris Carson told QNet News this week that rooms in the old residence have been doubled up “to help accommodate the increase in students to the college.

“There was a greater demand for double occupancy than we could fit into (the) Reilly building (part of the old-residence complex), and an additional six apartments – scattered throughout the other buildings – were doubled up,” he said via email.

The off-campus housing situation is also tight.

“I live with six other people in a three-bedroom house,” Tahej, a 20-year-old international student who refused to give his last name, told QNet this week. “We are two in a bedroom with one on a couch we bought in the living room.”

But the situation could be worse, he said.

“We are thankful to have a nice house. It is very nice and our landlord is very nice. But others have worse in Belleville, so we’re just thankful.”

The roommate who sleeps on the couch is an out-of-town domestic student who refused to give his name. “It is worse than (my) family’s house in Etobicoke, but education is important so (I) deal with it,” he said.

Another student, from India, who declined to give his name because he didn’t want to upset his landlord, told QNet: “I was able to find a nice room, but I (can) barely afford it. It is more expensive than residence, but I need space (and) don’t want to share a small room.”

He added: “I think some people do not want to rent to (international students), but that (is) just how it is. We still feel welcome, but there are the few who maybe do not like us.”

Dominique Jenkins, who is listed as the off-campus housing contact on Loyalist’s website – although she told QNet she is actually the contact for on-campus housing – said the college has 3,000 students this year, an increase over past years, so “we’ve got a high demand for on-campus and off-campus” housing.

In a Facebook post, QNet asked students if they have had issues finding housing. One recent graduate said he had.

“I was trying to find three-bedroom places with two classmates. While there were some available, they refused to rent out to students because of insurance liabilities or there were better fits,” said David Tuan Bui, a former journalism and communications student.

Time was almost out when he finally found housing, he said.

“As for one room, a lot of places were steep in rent, around the $600-800 range. I was lucky to get one place two days before my semester started. But that is just a sign of how difficult it is to find a place in town.”

In a housing summit in March 2019, Belleville council committed to building 1,000 new housing units by 2025.