Students face the brunt of rising housing prices in Toronto.   

Toronto ranked third highest amongst 35 Canadian cities for its apartment rents as per the latest national rent report from Rental.ca.   

As of November 2023, the rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Toronto is $2,607 and $3,424 for a two-bedroom apartment.  

Other Greater Toronto Area cities and areas including Oakville, Mississauga, Richmond Hill, and Etobicoke ranked fourth to eight highest in their average monthly rents.  

The increasing rent and cost of living is particularly difficult on students who do not have a full-time source of income and also need to pay high tuition fees. 

Many post-secondary students in Toronto and George Brown College (GBC) opt to live in shared rooms or private rooms in shared basements to save on rent.  

Kushagar Setia, a GBC student studying at the Casa Loma campus shared that he pays $800 monthly for a private room in a basement, which he shares with others.  

Setia is an international student whose friends helped him find a place to stay when he first moved to Canada.  

However, he has moved a couple of times since then due to issues with the rental property. 

“Sometimes the property is damaged, the owner doesn’t tell us [about] the problems in the property. I have recently changed my house. It was challenging to find a new place, we have to reach out to more [house] owners to find one,” Setia said.  

Smriti Menon is another international student at GBC who pays $850 per month for a private room including utilities.  

“It took me a month of rigorous research on Facebook, Kijiji and other similar sites to finally find a room suitable for my needs,” she said. “It is convenient since the room is at walking distance from campus and my workplace.” 

While Menon was successful in her search to find a convenient home to live in, others are not so lucky.  

Much like Setia, Om Vasudeva is a student at the Casa Loma Campus who has had difficulty finding proper housing options.  

“I have to go one and a half hours one way to [college]. It’s really time consuming for me,” Vasudeva said. 

He also mentioned the difficulty of finding a legitimate rental listing on easily accessible sites such as Facebook Marketplace.  

“There are scams, and they scam students because international students coming to Canada do not know how it works in Canada. So, if someone doesn’t have any friends over here, it is difficult,” he said.  

Early this year, a housing task force was established to work on supporting GBC’s ongoing campus master plan project. It is made up of internal stakeholders who investigate the issue of housing and how it affects the GBC community.  

At the Student Association of George Brown College’s (SAGBC) October board meeting, GBC’s housing taskforce presented its findings and plans so far. 

Brent Gilliard, advisor for campus planning at GBC, shared that one in 25 students at any given time are dealing with a form of homelessness. Increased prices of rent and general shortage of housing are contributing factors.  

During a presentation, Gilliard said, “Phase two [of the] Housing Task Force which we’re just jumping into right now is going to be a deep dive into the housing demand of the student and employee population at George Brown, we really want to understand what it needs to be affordable. What do we need to be targeting? We also want to understand what kind of housing people need.” 

Gilliard emphasized that the task force wants to focus its plans on students who are often overlooked such as students with children or families, and indigenous students.  

The housing task force plans to align their work with the changing needs and requirements of the city such as possibly buying and renovating nearby office buildings or hotels to turn into student housing.  

“UofT bought the hotel behind city hall like 30 years ago and turned it into student housing and that may be a viable option for George Brown,” Gilliard shared. 

GBC currently has one student residence, The George, with yearly fees of up to $10,762.50. This comes up to approximately $1,345 per month per student. 

Setia remembers reaching out to enquire about rates for The George and finding it unaffordable. 

“They (the college) should reduce the prices of college accommodation and maybe have a common portal where students can access other housing options,” he suggested. 

Similarly, Menon found that an additional fee of around $100 was charged in the waitlist, which she felt was unreasonable to ask of students.  

Vasudeva said, “Generally students don’t have that much time, they only get 20 hours of work a week, so it is difficult to manage finances with high rents.” 

At the meeting, Gilliard also shared that the taskforce envisions actively engaging the Student Association in the second phase. 

While students wait to see if the taskforce can do anything to help them and future generations of students with housing, the city’s recently announced plan may ignite a spark of hope. 

Earlier this fall, Toronto City Council announced a plan to build new affordable housing.  

The ambitious goal would see upwards of 65,000 rent-controlled units created over the next seven years, culminating in 2030. 

The project, estimated to cost $36-billion, would need funding from both the federal and provincial governments, with amounts between $500-million and $800-million per year.  

More information on the housing task force can be found on https://www.georgebrown.ca/media/george-brown-college-housing-task-force-progress-update-and-initial-findings.