StudentDwellTO

Affordability has become a primary concern for Toronto residents – from the rising value of homes to soaring rents. But in conversations about affordable housing, one group is often left out: post-secondary students.

The presidents of Toronto’s universities – the ��Ƶ, Ryerson University, OCAD University and York University – are pooling their resources and expertise to address this fundamental issue faced by students through the StudentDwellTO initiative.

Since 2017, faculty and students at the four universities have been working together to conduct an extensive literature review, teach studio courses, hold focus groups with students, analyze data and look for solutions to student housing issues.

Their work converged this week at StudentDwell+, a two-day symposium held at York University where groups presented their findings and scholars from around the world shared their expertise.

See the results from StudentMoveTO

At the symposium, members of StudentDwell’s core team presented some of the initial findings from 26 focus groups conducted with 116 students on six campuses. They included concerns about: limited on-campus housing options; predatory landlords; high transportation costs; and limited ability to participate in extracurricular activities if students lived far away from their classes.

Students also said their physical and mental well-being had taken a toll because of housing-related stress, including feelings of isolation from not being able to participate fully in campus life.

In speaking with students and reading literature on student housing, it became clear that one of the key issues is that students are rarely consulted in the decision-making processes around student housing, said Shelagh McCartney, an assistant professor at Ryerson’s School of Urban and Regional Planning and a StudentDwell member.

“There's a lot of perspective from parents and from developers in these discussions, but there are very few from actual students,” she told U of T News.

When it comes to finding solutions for student housing challenges, it’s not about finding a silver bullet, but “trying to understand how you can leverage positive and negative things to actually come up with an opportunity to do something,” said Mauricio Quirós Pacheco, an assistant professor, teaching stream at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design who is also part of StudentDwell.

The StudentDwell team suggested ways for universities to get started on addressing students' housing needs.

Marcelo Vieta, assistant professor at U of T’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, said universities should look beyond developers to forge housing partnerships with non-profits, governments and co-operatives. He also said it was important to amplify student voices by teaming up with organizations such as student unions.

While design solutions are also being looked at, changing policy is also an important part of the equation, said Vieta.

“It's this unregulated private market with abusive landlords that's a major issue that's directly impacting [students’] education,” he told U of T News.

During the presidents’ panel discussion, President Gertler echoed these challenges.

“The status quo is clearly not working here,” he said. “We do need to find creative alternatives that depart from the standard private market model.”

One of the ways the U of T is doing so is through its “four corners” real estate strategy, according to President Gertler.

The strategy, which includes new residences like the proposed tower at Spadina and Sussex Avenues (left), focuses on “how we can utilize our land assets in particular in ways that generate value for the university and enhance our academic vision, and, at the same time, enhance the livability of everyone in the Greater Toronto Area,” President Gertler said.

U of T is in conversations with “socially-minded” developers who have a “shared goal of ensuring the continued dynamism of the city by ensuring people who live there are diverse in every sense of the word, including their socioeconomic position,” President Gertler added.

All four university leaders stressed the important role universities play in quality of life for Toronto residents and in addressing urban challenges.

“You see an increasing awareness of the importance of understanding the impact universities are actually having in bringing together multiple sectors, in bringing together not-for-profits or private industry to collaborate together and really leveraging individual strengths, and how to make a maximum difference or a maximum impact with a particular problem we're dealing with,” said Lenton.

In holding an event like StudentDwell+, Quirós Pacheco said those conversations between stakeholders can begin to take place.

“It's one of the few times where you really understand the breadth of the problem, but also the breadth of the expertise that are at the table and just how global the problem is.”

StudentDwellTO: U of T, Toronto universities’ student housing initiative begins to take shape

Romi Levine — Wed, 07 Feb 2018 05:00:00 +0000

StudentDwellTO: U of T, Toronto universities’ student housing initiative begins to take shape

Romi Levine Wed, 02/07/2018 - 00:00

Cutline

Researchers are collecting data and case studies in order to find solutions to Toronto's student housing problems (photo by Filip Mroz via Unsplash)

Romi Levine

Topic

City & Culture

Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work

Graduate Students

Housing

John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

StudentDwellTO

Undergraduate Students

Researchers at the ��Ƶ, Ryerson, OCAD and York are beginning to understand just how large and complex the student housing issue is in Toronto.

Students and faculty from the four universities are working together on an initiative called StudentDwellTO – a joint research project established by the universities' presidents that will identify causes and propose possible solutions to the housing-related challenges students face.

U of T, OCAD, Ryerson, York collaborate in massive joint research project on affordable housing

lanthierj — Fri, 22 Sep 2017 17:57:04 +0000

U of T, OCAD, Ryerson, York collaborate in massive joint research project on affordable housing

lanthierj Fri, 09/22/2017 - 13:57

Cutline

Kearon Roy Taylor is one of the student leads for StudentDwellTO (photo by Romi Levine)

Romi Levine

Author legacy

Romi Levine

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

Collaboration

John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture

OISE

Subheadline

StudentDwellTO builds on StudentMoveTO

It takes ��Ƶ student Syed Imam about an hour and a half on public transit to get to the university’s downtown Toronto campus from his home in Mississauga.

That’s almost three hours of daily commuting, five days a week, for Imam, who studies civil engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering.

“I'm spending a little over $250 a month on commuting. If there was something reasonably close to campus, I would definitely choose to stay there,” says Imam, who spends almost 12 hours a day downtown to “optimize commuting times.”

Imam’s commuting woes aren’t unique – they’re a symptom of a larger issue facing post-secondary students in the Greater Toronto Area: the lack of affordable housing.

Recognizing the urgency of the issue, the presidents of Toronto’s four universities – the ��Ƶ, OCAD, York and Ryerson – are teaming up for a new initiative called StudentDwellTO, bringing together almost 100 faculty and students to take an in-depth look at student housing in the GTA.

“It’s yet another example of how the impact of our collective efforts can be far greater than the sum of individual contributions,” says Shauna Brail. An associate professor, teaching stream, Brail is U of T's presidential adviser on urban engagement and director of the urban studies program in the Faculty of Arts & Science.

This follows a previous collaboration among the four presidents – a massive survey of student travel behaviour called StudentMoveTO. That survey uncovered an unsettling narrative – students said a lack of housing affordability led to longer daily commute times, lower levels of campus engagement and, in some cases, hidden homelessness.

Considering the number of post-secondary students in the GTA – more than 180,000 spread across seven campuses – these findings are a big deal, says Brail, who will be U of T’s representative for StudentDwellTO’s steering committee.

��Ƶ president Meric Gertler agrees, emphasizing the importance of a rich co-curricular life for undergraduate and graduate students.

“We want our students to be able to take full advantage of all the opportunities offered by a U of T education,” the president says. “The university experience extends far beyond the classrooms, laboratories and lecture halls. By providing the research needed to develop innovative policy on student housing, this project has the potential to help students participate more fully in university life and make the cost of attending university more affordable.”

The new project will look at affordability from a multidisciplinary perspective. Researchers in architecture, education, engineering, psychology and geography will collaborate with GTA community partners.

“The opportunities for knowledge exchange are pretty incredible,” says Kearon Roy Taylor, a graduate student at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design and one U of T’s two student leads on the project.

Mauricio Quiros-Pacheco is one of the faculty leads of StudentDwellTO (photo by Romi Levine)

Results of the 18-month initiative, which will include a heavy research component, and data collection from a wide-scale survey and focus groups, will be made public. The subject matter will also be incorporated into courses, which will look at case studies from around the world on how to make housing more affordable.

The collaborative nature of StudentDwellTO across a variety of disciplines will encourage creative thinking, says Mauricio Quiros-Pacheco, an assistant professor, teaching stream, at the Daniels Faculty and one of the project’s academic leads. And because there’s no particular outcome expected, the teams will be able to experiment with a variety of ideas.

“We can be a bit more daring, going deeper into studies, trying to understand the potential of the city and the four institutions to address the crisis,” he says.

Marcelo Vieta, an assistant professor at U of T’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, is looking forward to applying this kind of out-of-the-box thinking to StudentDwellTO research.

“With me, it's around how to live differently and how to live better. How do we address some of the social ills we face by influencing policy and practices?”
StudentDwellTO has the potential to positively influence the affordable housing landscape in Toronto, but in order to do so, it’s crucial that students play a central role in both their input and research contributions, says Brail.

“Our students are leading-edge thinkers who bring \insight and intelligence to bear on this work,” she says. “As rising researchers, their understanding of the conditions, challenges and possibilities and their ability to shape the outcomes – potentially for future generations of students – is exciting.”

StudentDwellTO

U of T, Ryerson, York and OCAD address student housing challenges, solutions at StudentDwellTO symposium

Read more about StudentDwellTO

See the results from StudentMoveTO

StudentDwellTO: U of T, Toronto universities’ student housing initiative begins to take shape

Read more about StudentDwellTO

U of T, OCAD, Ryerson, York collaborate in massive joint research project on affordable housing