Even if students are among the people most affected by the housing crisis, little research focuses on the portrait of student housing in Quebec, says a report from the National Institute of Scientific Research (INRS), produced with the Quebec Youth Research Network Chair.
In the report “Challenges in student housing in Quebec and elsewhere: a review of the literature”, Nick Revington, assistant professor at the INRS Urbanization Culture Society Center, conducted a literature review of current research on student housing in Quebec.
“We didn’t really find much, so we turned to writings from the rest of Canada, from internationally, to understand the scientific debates around this question in other regions of the world, to see then what we could identify as the most important gaps in Quebec,” explains Mr. Revington in an interview.
According to him, “we really need more data and research on the issue of student housing in Quebec in order to better understand the issues, and therefore, to better understand what the solutions would be.”
Even if studies on the subject are few in number in the province, Quebec has several data, in particular thanks to surveys conducted by the Work Unit for the Implementation of Student Housing (UTILE), which are, for Mr. Revington , “the best sources of data on students and student housing in Canada, and their data is mainly for Quebec”.
“The problem is that it is difficult to validate UTILE data, because we do not have other sources of official data which are sufficiently detailed on students, socio-economic, socio-demographic characteristics, students in Quebec and Canada to say: yes, the UTILE data are very reliable or not,” specifies the professor.
He believes that the responsibility for developing research on the subject lies not only with researchers, but also with the government, such as the Ministry of Higher Education, which could develop more robust official data on the student population.
The report in which Mr. Revington participated suggests some avenues of research that could be explored further.
“We need to better understand the effect of the housing crisis on students, on academic success, on the question of work-family-study balance,” he says, namely whether the housing crisis forces students to work or work more hours to be able to pay for their accommodation, and what impact this will have on their academic success.
The professor indicates that it could be relevant to question whether some students decide not to continue their education because of the high cost of housing or the difficulty of finding a roof over their head. Cohabitation between students from university and college towns with local residents could also be studied.
Research should also look at student housing across the province.
“The little research that exists in Quebec really focuses on Montreal, so there is also a need to understand the situation outside the metropolis, because the housing crisis does not only affect Montreal, but it affects more or less all university or college towns in Quebec,” explains Mr. Revington.
Explore existing solutions
For Mr. Revington, the issues surrounding student housing mainly concern the private market.
“Almost 70% of university students live in the private rental market. In the private market, [il y a des] questions of affordability, of being able to find housing, there are very low vacancy rates in several university towns in Quebec, and also in towns with CEGEPs,” explains Mr. Revington.
He emphasizes that there is also a lack of places in university residences, which explains the large proportion of students having to find accommodation on the private rental market.
According to the professor, certain innovative initiatives are already in place in Quebec, and they deserve to be explored further. He cites in particular the organization UTILE, which works to develop affordable housing for students, often in collaboration with student associations.
The report also highlights residency projects meeting the specific needs of Indigenous students, undertaken in Quebec, Trois-Rivières and Sept-Îles, to facilitate their academic success.