A residence building at Loyalist College campus: since the college has room for just over 600 students on campus, the majority of the nearly 1,700 international students have to find off-campus accommodation. Photo by Jordan Mills, QNet News
By Jordan Mills
BELLEVILLE – Moving to a new country for an education is supposed to be an exciting time for students, but for some international students at Loyalist College, finding a place to live while studying can be a discouraging experience.
Loyalist is home to close to 1,700 international students, acting president Mark Kirkpatrick told QNet News in an interview Thursday. The college’s residences have space for just over 600 students, which means many of the international students must live off-campus. Many of them prefer off-campus housing, Kirkpatrick said.
However, finding off-campus accommodation that’s clean, affordable and not overcrowded is proving to be a huge challenge for many students.
According to a recent news story in The Intelligencer, some rentals in the city have as many as 15 students living in them, which has led to unsafe and unsanitary living conditions.
Mayor Mitch Panciuk and Belleville city council passed a motion on Sept. 12 to take legal action against these property owners, according to the Intelligencer story.
“There’s challenges in the rental market across the entire country,” Kirkpatrick told QNet in an interview about the student housing situation. “It’s not unique to this region and there are varying degrees of challenges right now.”
Loyalist has reduced the cost of living in residence to ease the financial burden on students, he said.
College measures to help international students specifically include meeting them at the airport when they arrive and providing free transportation to Belleville, as well as putting them up in a hotel if they don’t yet have a place to stay, Kirkpatrick said.
The college will also place students in a hotel if they find themselves in an overcrowded house, until a new housing situation presents itself, he said.
“Because of the crisis that’s going on now – I shouldn’t say ‘crisis’; because of the challenges going on, we’ve been working with local hotels … to actually provide longer-than-normal short-term accommodations. Given enough time, we find students are able to find appropriate housing situations.”
The school itself does not do any vetting of potential landlords or homeowners, Kirkpatrick said, explaining that it doesn’t have the expertise for that. Instead, it directs students to sites like the online marketplace Kijiji to find potential roommates and housing, he said.
Asked about reports of students sleeping on floors, and as many as 15 crowded into the same residence, Kirkpatrick condemned the landlords.
“We don’t condone, support or endorse any of those living conditions. We applaud cities that have started to crack down on these landlords. It isn’t right what they are doing.”
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