GuelphToday received the following letter to the editor from reader Donna McLeish regarding the state of Guelph's living situation for post-secondary students.
Rental homeowners in Guelph should be ashamed of themselves. The University of Guelph has managed to enrol a double cohort of students in this year, trying to help kids get back on track after already having to make it through what should have been some of the best years of their lives – high school. They spent most of that time at home, living the school experience virtually and missing most of the excitement and fun of the social growing up their parents and everyone else had.
They are now facing a myriad of unique circumstances, challenges to overcome.
So now first-year students are at the point of having to arrange for off-campus living for next year. Some kids this year have to live in hotels at a ridiculous cost. For next year, school starts in September but kids are expected to commit to start paying for housing in May. No landlords are allowing sub-letting for summer months for kids to try to recoup some of those funds and then to make matters even more interesting - the point of this article - is that average rental rates for students have gone up by about 50 per cent per student this year, incredible.
Why? Well it is this writer’s opinion that it is simple greed. The opportunistic: landlords and real estate service providers are taking advantage of the over-admissions at the university this year and resulting housing shortage to over-inflate rental rates to students - because they can. Shame on you. Students seem to have been paying an average findable rate of $650-$700 per student per month, and suddenly kids can’t find anything for less than $1,000-$1,100 per month. And this is not luxury living by any stretch.
Kids are going to struggle to try to find work to make up for the added cost of living away while they should be trying to focus on getting their studying and schoolwork done. They are just trying to get an education that they are told they need; a degree to get them started on their own lives and the world around them has remarkably become like a herd of financial predators’ believing that where they can squeeze the money out of our younger generation at this time, they will take to benefit themselves.
This is not to make up for any added “COVID supply chain costs” nor a rising inflation rate. It is opportunistic and greedy. Guelph is a university town. The kids just need somewhere to live. Anyone reading this article, and hungrily rubbing your hands together at the thought of fleecing 18 and 19-year-old students who may not now be able to start saving a little money toward their own home one day, or even just the travel they pay for to get home a few times a year to see their families, shame on you.
Guelph homeowners with scruples, please consider doing the right thing for our young people in your town just trying to lay the foundations for their lives. Young people are looking for a reasonable cost of living in a small city away from home. Nothing more than that.
Donna McLeish
