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Researchers are sounding the alarm about the number of post-secondary students experiencing homelessness.
Student advocacy groups in Nova Scotia echo the concern, saying their peers are struggling to balance the burden of rising costs while going to school
“They come in thinking that they’re going to be fine and then they realize, ‘Oh no,’” said Liza Zahid, president of the Saint Mary’s University Students’ Association in Halifax.
She says some students are juggling multiple jobs just to keep a roof over their head. Ultimately, she says rising housing costs combined with tuition hikes are taking a toll on students.
“The jobs don’t pay enough, so when they’re trying to find housing, it’s really hard to find affordable housing,” she said.
“The students who come in (to the association) saying that they’re having mental health issues because of the stress they’re going through, or some end up even homeless and don’t know they’re jumping from couch to couch. If you take all of that into account, it’s really, very serious.”
A recent report conducted by a group of Nova Scotia and Alberta researchers finds about one in four Canadian post-secondary students experiences some form of homelessness.
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Marginalized groups were at higher risk of housing precarity, according to the report, including women, racialized people, and members of the LGBTQ2 community.
“The majority of students who experience homelessness receive little support from their families, reporting only occasional or rare contact, and 18 per cent described having little to no support of any kind,” the report notes.
All this has an impact on academic success. Forty-four per cent of respondents described their grades as “low” and 63 per cent said they had to miss school due to homelessness.
The findings of the report, which is based on interviews conducted during the 2022-2023 academic year at six campuses, are being presented at an upcoming national summit in Edmonton this June.
Lead researcher Emily Berg says many students are hiding their situation and struggles due to stigma.
“Almost 80 per cent of them had shame talking about homelessness and talked about embarrassment and had actively hidden their situation from others,” she said.
Researchers found in many cases, homelessness may not be obvious.
“They experience what’s called ‘hidden homelessness,’ and this is hidden. It looks like students sleeping in 24-hour buildings, in libraries, in their cars, in stairwells. Or it looks like couch-surfing.”
Berg says she and her team have developed tool kits to help post-secondary institutions bolster its housing support and better assist students in need.
Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC) student services counsellor, Lisa Mader, helped with the study and has also spearheaded an emergency housing program at the college.
That program has helped 24 students over the past year.
“This was sort of the population of our society that I think folks wouldn’t normally think to think of when we think of homelessness,” said Mader.
That hidden and silent aspect of the struggle is what Zahid is concerned about, too, and has her advocating for even more solutions.
“At the end of the day, the students are really, really struggling,” she said.
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