A Toronto college is pairing international students with seniors to help ease the housing crunch
CBC
As Canada faces a growing affordable housing shortage, one Toronto-area college is pairing students with seniors in an effort to help find them accommodations as the school year begins.
Humber College has announced a partnership with online home share technology platform, Spaces Shared, to pair students looking for accommodation with seniors who have extra space as an affordable housing option. And according to the college, more than 500 students have already signed up.
Ian Crookshank, dean of students at Humber College, says students can save money through the pairings, easing the financial pressures they face.
"Students could receive a discount if they agree to do certain tasks around the home that might help around the house, like mowing the lawn, doing the dishes, or even just spending time and providing companionship," he said.
Students who sign up for the program can with hosts and pay through an online platform. Homeowners with vacancies can sign up online, post an ad and connect with students to find a suitable tenant.
Humber College isn't the only school trying to ease housing pressures through pairing with seniors. In April, Georgian College signed up for a similar program with Spaces Shared and another similar online platform, Homestay, to pair domestic and international students with local residents in Barrie.
As unfamiliar as it may sound, some international students living with Canadian seniors say there couldn't have been a better living arrangement.
When Awofadeju Olajide Simon, an international student from Nigeria, decided to move to Canada, all of the options were way out of his budget.
He was told by friends in Canada it would easier to find housing from within the country than writing to landlords in Toronto from Nigeria.
"It wasn't. I was stressing out for days," he said.
Fortunately, one of his professors linked him up with an elderly couple, Hubert and Monica Campfens, in Toronto's east end.
The couple has been renting out two rooms and a basement to international students for the past 33 years. They say they like to share the whole house with tenants, and don't want them to be confined to their rooms.
Hubert was a young teenager in Holland during the Second World War. He says his family took in two Jews and lied to their neighbours to protect them. He says those years left a deep impact on him that continued to shape his experiences even after moving to Canada in 1953.
"I became concerned about and particularly about minorities," he said.
This story is a collaboration between the Investigative Journalism Foundation and CBC Saskatchewan.
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