Thousands of returning students to Camosun College and the University of Victoria have experienced first-hand the stress of scrambling to find a decent place to live in the capital region.
Greater Victoria now has the tightest vacancy rate in Canada, at just 0.6 per cent, with average monthly rents climbing to the third most expensive in the country, behind only Toronto and Vancouver. The limited availability — and lack of affordability — for rental housing confronts not just students in the capital region, but working families of all types and sizes.
Local government has been vocal in trying to get the attention of senior levels of government to make investments in new affordable-housing stock. While that remains a work in progress, there have been some recent successes in acquiring new units to house the most vulnerable in our population. Much more needs to be done to help address the housing needs of those making a living or studying in our community.
More rental-housing options of all kinds are needed. And there are some institutions uniquely positioned with an ability to respond quickly to this urgent demand for housing — if given direction and permission to build.
With more than 22,000 students enrolled, the University of Victoria has just 2,200 rooms available to its student population. For every successful applicant for a residence space, there are up to four others who apply.
For years, UVic (as well as the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University) has asked government for permission to borrow at today’s record-low interest rates to build more on-campus housing.
Former premier Gordon Campbell finally recognized in the 2010 throne speech that provincial accounting rules prevented the ability to borrow or use reserves to fund new housing construction at our universities and vowed to fix the situation. But for the past six years, the problem has been ignored by Premier Christy Clark and her B.C. Liberal government. This is contributing to the situation of rental-housing scarcity.
Universities have repeatedly requested — but so far been denied — the ability to create new housing. In the case of UVic, it is critical to address this problem because more than 70 per cent of its students come from outside our region.
The province doesn’t like the optics of borrowing to build residences because it gets recorded as provincial debt. Yet there is virtually no taxpayer risk to our universities to borrow to build more residences. The debt is self-funded, the land is already owned by the public and high demand ensures dorms will be 100 per cent occupied.
If UVic were able to act through its own non-profit housing development corporation or another such entity — without provincial interference and further delay — it could immediately begin to plan and build 500 more residences for students.
This would benefit everyone competing in today’s constricted rental market, which has reached unhealthy proportions and left many without the security of housing to raise their family or attend college or university here.
When I attended UVic in the 1990s, the vacancy rate was considered normal (about four per cent). The two-bedroom apartment my roommate and I rented was on a bus route to campus and cost us $500 per month. Today, a student can expect to pay more than $1,000 for a small bachelor unit, if they can find one.
Local governments are sending the right signal. Saanich — which banned secondary suites for years — now wants to see more new suites and detached garden suites in neighbourhoods. Provincial and federal incentive programs could help homeowners build suites on their property, help with mortgage costs and house those struggling to find places to live.
The housing needs of students and those wanting to live and work here aren’t going away; they will continue to grow. The University of Victoria can and should be included in the regional mix of solutions to the affordable housing crisis and be allowed to do so by the province.
Rob Fleming is the MLA for Victoria-Swan Lake and a former vice-chairman of the Capital Region Housing Corporation.
