IN THIS ISSUE

• Desjardins feature our research and national media get involved

• This week’s good news in housing

• Resources for new renters

TOP STORY

✏️ National media spotlight student housing

As students across the country returned to campus last week, national media flocked to reporting the student housing shortage like sports channels seeing Taylor Swift at the first game of the NFL season. Articles were based on research from Desjardins Economics, which showed that the lack of campus housing across Canada forces students to rent in their local communities and drives up rental price.

To make their case, the authors of the Desjardins report used your responses about cost and the lack of housing built for students from our research. If you’re as excited about this as we are, you can see our figures included on page 3 of their report.

Articles written from the Toronto Star and the Financial Post zero in on the problem identified by the Desjardins report.

• Toronto Star: 1 in 10 students across the country get into on-campus residence, pushing 1.2 million students into surrounding communities.

• Financial Post: As more students are forced to rent off-campus, there will be fewer rentals available for other residents. The student housing crisis doesn’t only impact students.

Desjardins argues that we can’t just rely on schools to build — Canada needs a mix of inclusive policy and private investment to catch up to student housing numbers in the U.S. and the U.K. We agree.

👏 Good news in housing

We signed on to help deliver 4,600+ units of student housing

Is it conceited to call good news for us good news for you? Maybe, but we know that young people are the future of our cities and should play a bigger part in fixing our housing crisis. As we continue to build out partnerships, we will work closely with decision makers to place a greater emphasis on Canada’s future than they are today.

B.C. releases cookie cutter housing designs

The Government of B.C. released a free catalogue of surprisingly sleek housing designs for duplexes, triplexes, and quadplexes. The resource aims to provide already-approved building blocks for densification that can be mixed and matched to speed up the pre-construction process for small housing projects. Keep reading…

Another interest rate cut from the Bank of Canada

While this 0.25% decrease in interest rates is unlikely to have any significant impact on housing prices, it could be a sign of things to come. Forecasts from leading banks expect more slashes into 2025, which would allow buyers to take advantage of lower mortgage rates. With more buyer activity, we could see increases in rental listings as new homeowners create empty units that must be filled. Keep reading…

🗂 Resources for new renters

Whether it’s your first time living on your own or you’ve been renting for years, this is the time of year that lots of young people move into new places. We’ve compiled resources from provincial advocacy centres to get you started. Many student societies have their own list of resources as well.

Ontario

Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario: Tip sheets, free legal advice, and reform updates.

British Columbia

Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre: Free legal education for BC tenants, template letters, and access to free legal advice.

Alberta

Laws for Landlords and Tenants in Alberta: Information on disputes, notices, responsibilities, and everything else you could ever need.

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