By Oli Herrera

STUDENT HOUSING CONCERNS

Students still struggle to find housing ahead of school year

Sep 1, 2021 | 5:19 PM

PRINCE GEORGE—As students prepare for classes next week, there are still concerns over where they’ll be able to live.

“I think housing in Prince George specifically has always posed a challenge, especially to students coming into town from other parts of British Columbia or internationally,” said Damon Robinson, Membership Outreach Coordinator, CNC Student Union.

Even with next apartment complexes close to completion; such as the new one in downtown Prince George, which will house both UNBC and CNC students. It still doesn’t fix one of the main problems: which is that there’s not enough rental spaces to go around, causing demand and prices to rise.

“We hear about it all the time, we get messages all the time asking for assistance on housing. Not even just the funding part, but finding where they could even look for housing,” said Robinson.

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That leads to the second problem: not enough affordable housing for students.

“The college even throughout the pandemic, we did have some funding go to us so we could help provide for these students from government grants, but now that that’s all ending, and jobs are also being full and people are looking for jobs, paying for these housing–or these houses and rental complexes–it’s a big issue,” said Robinson.

Former Economist Instructor Al Idiens says that the number of available rentals isn’t properly aligned with the population right now.

“We’ve seen the population increasing in Prince George over the past couple of decades and you know that the number of apartments and houses haven’t increased at the same rate,” said Idiens.

Another issue is that a majority of the population hasn’t moved out of the city, but Idiens says he believes that the market could level out within the year as more places become available.

“You’ll find these apartments coming on to the market now, looking for renters. You know both downtown in Prince George and up around the intersection of Highway 16 and 97, you’ll find a lot of apartment space coming up,” said Idiens.

Robinson says that with a university and college in town, it creates a lot of competition to find living spaces for the school year. Many students now are in temporary living situations until they can find a permanent solution.

“This is an issue that’s going to be long lasting until we get more options for students.” said Robinson.