A bold solution for student housing

Student housing has been in crisis for years and new laws in Hamilton might offer an opportunity to bring back an old solution, could student co-operatives make a comeback?

Hamilton’s student housing market is a mess. Every year students struggle in a race to acquire limited off campus housing, often making sacrifices in cost or distance.

Student housing has also been subjected to increasing blame for Canada’s broader housing crisis, which has pushed the current liberal government into capping foreign student numbers in a weak attempt to address endemic problems.

Hamilton’s housing situation is particularly desperate, with both buying and renting remaining unaffordable for most. Despite being one of Hamilton’s top municipal issues, progress has been slow outside of the downtown core.

Recent changes to zoning regulations have made space for more gentle density development, allowing duplex, triplex and fourplex buildings in single unit zoned areas. These zoning changes offer a new path for student housing in the Ainslie Wood and Westdale areas where student housing is most concentrated. This could potentially mean a more diverse set of housing options and an expanded pool of available housing, all critical things to addressing the student housing crisis - but will it?

As high profile projects in Hamilton’s downtown core, backed by major developers, have been delayed due to increased capital costs, it shouldn’t be surprising that the small-landlord-dominated student housing market would be resistant or incapable of engaging in neighborhood-changing development. But what international investors may see as an emerging market opportunity, is not something students can afford to be kept out of the decision making process on.

The characterization of Canada’s student housing market as underdeveloped has some basis in the lived reality of students; a lack of purpose-built housing options is detrimental to both supply and choice. But current proposed solutions, such as the one offered by the Real Estate News Exchange, are not ideal for students. We don’t need more corporate owners building huge, unaccountable student dormitory towers.

There is however one radical alternative. Student co-operative housing has a long history in Canada. Canada’s oldest co-operative housing project is actually Toronto’s Campus Cooperative Residence, opened in 1934.

In the latter half of the 20th century, rental co-op's emerged in force to support low and middle income communities in securing affordable, secure housing. The model sought to provide low-cost housing by eliminating a profit motive. Residents also take part in co-operative governance, electing a board to oversee the co-op's affairs and maintenance.

Student co-ops use the co-operative housing model to manage costs and community affairs in their buildings. This democratic process keeps profit making out of student housing and allows for students to create an affordable community-based alternative to extractive student housing. This democratic mechanism could be used to balance student housing needs and sustainable development objectives in the student neighborhoods surrounding McMaster.

The only issue with this utopian vision of democratic student residences should be obvious however - money. Whether it be the capital to build initial projects, or expand upon a hopefully successful model, a bunch of idealist students whose university careers might only last a few years are not ideal for securing loans.

For interested student activists there are examples of successful student co-ops to learn from across Canada. However, moving fast to capitalize on the opportunity offered by Hamilton’s new zoning regulations will take organizational capabilities and infrastructure that would be hard to build from the ground up quickly enough.

If the McMaster Students Union wants to make a serious impact in students' lives, using its organizational capabilities and status to facilitate the creation of co-operative student housing could make a permanent impact on McMaster student’s lives.

Recent interest from the federal government in using co-operative housing means there are opportunities — and possible funding — to tap into. The MSU could put itself at the forefront of a new movement with a bold, creative solution to student’s problems, but it will take daring leadership and effort to succeed.