Some university students in Halifax still don't have a place to live this year
The president of the University of King's College student union says at least 20 students at her school have yet to find a place to live this year amid Halifax's housing crisis.
"For the students that don't have housing to go to, I think they're just going to feel lost," Victoria Gibbs told Maritime Connection in an interview on Sunday. "There's not much they can do at that point except sit and wait and do more searches."
Last month, King's appealed to alumni to rent bedrooms or other spaces to students. Gibbs said many in the community have since offered to help.
"It's just coming from people out of the goodness of the heart that have experience with students or otherwise touched by the call to find somewhere for them to live," she said.
But even with that community support, it's not enough to help everyone searching for a place to live.
Most students started moving on Sunday. Classes begin on Tuesday.
"That these students are essentially going to be figuring it out as [they] go for maybe weeks before they get a spot — if they get a spot — is a testimony to how desperate they are to go to school," Gibbs said.
Gibbs doesn't think anyone thought the housing situation would become this dire because much of the previous two school years were spent online.
"We had half capacity at residence two years ago, still partially living in it last year, hybrid learning, online learning — people weren't in the city," Gibbs said. "And now we are full-fledged back in person."
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