July 15, 2022
Canada: Immigrant Students Face Trauma While Searching for Homes
T To get housing, international students must outbid Canadian applicants. Many landlords require credit reports or references from prior tenants, which international students may not have. Landlords are not the only issue. Take Halifax as an example; students find it tough to find accommodation. Some have even termed their search for a house as traumatic.
Limited supply of homes has made rents rise two-fold, making it a harrowing experience for immigrant students in Canada.
…searching is a traumatising experience that results in physical and mental distress…
International students face housing problems everywhere, whether in larger cities like Toronto and Vancouver or rural areas. A source said that almost every part of Canada that has a post-secondary institution has a housing shortage, said a source from the rental market.
International students are frequently unaware of the Canadian rental market. When in need of housing, they become |easy prey for con artists, according to Dania Majid of the Toronto-based Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario.
Another headache for students is scamsters. Often there are ads to which immigrant students respond, only to find that the person placing the AD is not the landlord but a scamster. In some cases, students responded to apartment-for-rent ads online and paid deposits of $3,000 or more – only to find that the person advertising the apartment was not the landlord and that there was no vacancy, said a source.
A student who recently immigrated from Bangladesh said, “Searching is a traumatising experience that results in physical and mental distress.”
In some good news to students, many universities are organising stay for immigrant students through schemes. One such is The University of Regina in Saskatchewan. The university is bundling tuition and housing for both domestic and international students in a discounted package called “The Really Big Deal”.
Posted in News and tagged News, Canada, Immigrant Students, International Students, Housing, Canadian Rental Market
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