Queen’s Community Housing rental increases disavow responsibility towards graduate students.
Queen’s grad students were devastated last week when Queen’s Community Housing announced rent for all units in the An Clachan Housing Complex and John Orr Tower will increase by 35 per cent over the next three years.
This rental increase is consistent with the rising costs of living everywhere, but particularly the City of Kingston. Even more concerningly, the increase is consistent with Queen’s mistreatment of its graduate students.
Despite Queen’s having ranked first in the world for its contributions to a United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) project aiming to address food insecurity, 29 per cent of its students reported food insecurity in a 2022 health survey.
The rapidity with which PSAC 901’s $30,000 fund of gift cards to be put towards purchasing food ran out in 2023 conveyed the extent of food insecurity amongst grad students.
Because of the rising costs of living, increasingly, graduate students are forced to work more hours outside of their research, consequently taking longer than their program’s standard lengths to complete their degrees.
The result is sparser housing options for incoming students. Though graduate students occupying community housing units a year or two longer limits housing availability, raising the price of rent will only aggravate the cycle of students needing to work more to pay their bills and thus staying longer to finish their degrees.
Queen’s knows how many graduate students it’s itting, how much they get paid, and how much suitable housing is available to them. The University’s failure to amend the clear deficiencies in the proportions it’s creating is cruel.
The projected difficulty of paying such steeply increased rent has many graduate students worrying they won’t be able to finish their degrees.
International students have particular cause for concern, as the number of hours they’re allowed to work outside of the university is limited.
Oftentimes, graduate student housing not only impacts the lives of students, but of their spouses or families. Students with children can’t be expected to find suitable housing in any student neighbourhood or residence. Housing dedicated to and affordable for graduate students is a necessity.
An entirely fair solution doesn’t seem possible with such limited supply. Yet, needs-based housing could be a marked improvement over a lottery system or first-come, first-serve basis.
Rather than massively increasing the rent in An Clachan and John Orr, the University could raise rent across all of its housing options by a far smaller amount.
Universities often cover some costs of moving for professors relocating to be closer to their institution. While Queen’s can’t afford to pay for every student’s move, it could devise a similar fund to cover graduate housing costs in lieu of raising rent by more than four times the legal provincial guidelines.
Grad students contribute more than tuition to Queen’s. They work in labs, oversee undergraduate work, and conduct invaluable research that brings the university money and repute. At the very least, they deserve to have their basic needs assured in return.
—Journal Editorial Board
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