The student housing crisis is different

The student housing crisis is unique to the broader crisis, and will require different and more bold solutions

Canada’s housing crisis has been a top news item for years now. Despite fading into the background as Donald Trump has come to dominate Canadian political concerns, it still desperately needs our attention.

But as advocates adjust their strategies to a shifting political environments and prepare for an upcoming election where they’ll have to fight to make equitable housing a central concern for federal parties. We have to recognize that Canada’s housing crisis isn’t a single crisis, it’s multiple.

The housing crisis has affected renters drastically more than it has homeowners and home buyers. Long before prospective buyers faced the rising costs of a housing shortage, renters were facing the steep cost rises driven by a lack of regulation and an influx of highly profit-motivated private capital into the housing market.

These two housing crises weigh particularly heavy on student renters, whose unique situation has largely been ignored at the government level.

The student housing crisis is unique in three ways.

First, student renters aren’t afforded the same protections as regular renters. The Rental Tenancies Act, the piece of provincial legislation that outlines the responsibilities and protections afforded to renters and landlords, does not cover students who live in the same house as the owner or their child. This exemption leaves a number of students without the protections afforded by legally enforceable lease agreements.

Even for students covered by the act, its enforcement mechanism, the Landlord Tenant Board, is overburdened and underfunded and prioritizes resolving cases of non-payment of rent over issues of health and safety or landlord abuses. Students, whose rental terms revolve around the school year, would struggle with wait times that often exceed five months to resolve cases.

This inadequate protection only compounds issues students already face in finding safe, quality housing. We’ve all seen some strange renovations in student homes, oddly placed walls or awkwardly small rooms meant to squeeze more students into one house. But what can be a charming quirk in some houses is a safety hazard in others.

Because of the sheer number of student rentals across the Ainslewood and Westdale neighbourhoods, home inspections are rare and often inadequate. Dangerous and unsanitary houses slip through the cracks and students are left relying on the goodwill of landlords to deal with issues that could harm their health.

The race for student housing that often forces renters into unsafe circumstances is fueled by the last unique element of the student housing crisis, the lack student housing. But what if we could turn our existing housing into the adequate housing students need?

Students have a bold option to take issues into their hands: a tenant union. While most tenant unions are building specific, renters covered under the Rental Tenancies Act can legally organize neighborhood or community wide unions.

Establishing a tenant union that covers a large number of students would face some serious challenges. To succeed a potential union would need to go house by house recruiting every tenant in a house to establish bargaining power. Students' high turnover would hinder recruitment and staying power, but the potential benefits could be worth the effort.

A union could help provide students legal defense, fight rent hikes and improve conditions. It could also provide a better mechanism for advocacy at the municipal, provincial and federal level, helping fight for recognition of the student housing crisis as a real issue.

There are two unions on campus who together could provide the organizing capacity: CUPE 3906 has experience organizing tenants at 10 Bay Street while the MSU has the ability and structure to secure long term funding.

The other problem—the potential legal problem for a tenant union—is leverage. Renters have very little leverage over their landlords unless the landlord is breaking the law, as pursuing a rent strike is technically illegal.

But a potential student tenants union could use a carrot, not just a stick, to entice landlords. A union could finally build a proper housing portal where landlords compliant with legal requirements, with a history of treating union members well, can advertise their rentals. Creating a portal both students and landlords could finally trust.

The student housing crisis will exist as long as students remain underserved by the laws meant to protect them as renters. As long as we remain unorganized, then nothing about our unique housing crisis will change.