When fourth-year Dalhousie University accounting pupil Lauren Palmer was on the lookout for housing three years in the past, it was a troublesome enterprise.
Fortunately, she was capable of finding an house in Halifax, however she is aware of it’s not a straightforward feat — particularly for incoming college students.
“It’s positively gotten quite a bit worse every year, I’ve observed,” she stated.
“At present, I’m trying to see what my subsequent house goes to be…. The costs are ridiculous and also you by no means actually know what you’re getting or what you’re going to get into. It’s not a very good search course of.”
Dalhousie College within the metropolis’s south finish is readying to interrupt floor on a brand new six-storey on-campus residence that can home about 200 college students.
The constructing between Henry and Seymour streets, behind Dalhousie Arts Centre, is slated to open in 2027. Within the meantime, smaller buildings that at present home 45 tenants should be eliminated this coming spring.
It is going to assist meet a provincial funding settlement that requires the college to accommodate a minimum of 15 per cent of its pupil inhabitants primarily based on present enrolment numbers.
“Each time there may be new pupil housing, I feel there may be trigger to rejoice having extra choices and extra alternatives for college students to have the ability to discover locations to stay,” stated G Saleski, the manager director of College students Nova Scotia, a not-for-profit and non-partisan advocacy group.
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“College students in Nova Scotia face the second-highest price for housing wherever within the nation simply behind B.C.”
In a press release, Dalhousie College says it has an “bold” 10-year housing plan to construct a number of hundred extra beds on campus.
It says the design of the brand new construct addresses suggestions from college students, who stated they wished extra apartment-style residing.
The whole price of the development shouldn’t be but recognized, however it is going to be financed utilizing exterior debt and repaid by means of residence charges.
Whereas those that research at Dalhousie welcome the brand new construct and imagine it is going to assist alleviate the crunch, many marvel if it’ll make a dent within the inexpensive housing disaster.
A Canada Mortgage and Housing Company (CMHC) report from earlier this yr discovered lease costs in Halifax are rising at rates above the national average.
The report discovered the typical rent progress for same-sample items – flats widespread to 2 consecutive surveys – rose by 11.9 per cent final yr, “the best single-year enhance and 4 instances the typical historic progress price.”
The common price of a two-bedroom house in Halifax was $1,628 per thirty days in 2023, up from $1,445 in 2022. The nationwide common lease for the markets in CMHC’s survey was $1,359.
All this has college students like Palmer involved.
“I don’t suppose it’s ever going to be sufficient,” Palmer stated, including that she thinks about housing “on a regular basis.”
“Dalhousie and Halifax are each rising, and I like that. However on the identical time, it does have detriments and that does embody the truth that housing is simply not likely on the level the place it must be.”
She says if “200 items are the most effective we are able to do now, I feel we’ll take them,” however believes extra sources are wanted.
“There aren’t a whole lot of instruments, and particularly for first-year college students who’re coming in with actually no data of the Halifax rental business,” she stated. “It’s a extremely difficult course of that I’m unsure sufficient college students are educated on.”
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