Post-secondary students skipping meals, dodging scams amid housing crunch

Post-secondary students across Canada are skipping meals, relying on food banks and facing an increasing number of housing scams as they contend with skyrocketing rentals costs and a lack of on-campus housing. Meanwhile, colleges and universities scramble to address the housing crunch through better planning and deals with private providers.

Eleven per cent of University of Alberta students in Edmonton are skipping meals more than twice a week (another 13 per cent skip at least one meal a week), and the campus food bank is spending $10,000 on food per month to supply the demand, twice what it was last year, according to Abdul Abbasi, the vice-president of external relations for the school’s student union. A survey conducted by the union also found another 17 per cent of students had unstable housing situations in the last year, including evictions, homelessness and even sleeping in campus common areas because they have no place else to go. Mr. Abassi himself was working two jobs while attending U of A, and said that in the past two years the average rent of a two-bedroom house jumped more than $350 dollars per month.

“I spoke at city council last week that what needs to happen is there needs to be more money into affordable housing: students need two- and three-bedroom housing,” said Mr. Abbasi. Multiroom housing allows for roommates to share costs.