By: Eden Wondmeneh
As a first-year student living on residence, I had to cough up an outrageous amount of money for a mediocre living experience.
Following a $600 residence deposit, residence can cost anywhere from $5,800 to $8,825, not including the additional, mandatory cost of a meal plan that ranges from $2,975 to $4,735.
Separate from the fees, incoming students wishing to have a guaranteed residence space on-campus must achieve, at minimum, an 81.5 per cent in their senior year of high school.
It’s as if an acceptance to McMaster is not enough to attend the university, with residence being the only option for many out-of-province students.
Even if you find yourself as one of the almost 3700 students living on McMaster residence, you are expected to move out promptly after your final exam in April. In fact, you are expected to leave residence by 3:00 p.m. on the very next day.
With the average cost of living at Mac being just under $12,000, this deadline does not fit with what students have paid for. It likely exists in order to stagger students’ departure as a way to prevent chaos and large wait times, but for many students it’s an impossible deadline to meet.
As it is an odd request for students to pack up their entire dorm so quickly after their final exams, students with ‘legitimate’ reasons for not being able to meet the deadline can apply for an extension.
Those that can apply for this extension are international and out-of-province students with travel requirements, those with exceptional circumstances or those with academic requirements to fulfill like a new exam or deferred lab. But even if a student has one of these ‘legitimate’ reasons, there is still a chance that the extension won’t be granted.
Ultimately, the terms of the extension application are made so that students who have assignment accommodations, need time before their new lease or sublet agreements take affect, have extracurricular commitments or have storage needs till the end of term have no options and are scrambling to find alternative accommodations.
It’s as if these aren’t legitimate reasons to need to stay in a dorm room, that you have already paid for, until the official end of term.
I am currently struggling to figure out what to do come the end of term. My exams happen to fall on the earlier spectrum of exam season, and since my family is scattered across America during my assigned move-out date, I’m stuck between an alarmingly expensive taxi ride back home or a cheaper but nightmarish, impossible GO bus trip with my 40 pieces of luggage.
My situation is much easier to deal with than those who are from out of town or students with accessibility accommodations, who need to stay in Hamilton for a few days or weeks extra.
The entire purpose of residence is to make university life, both academic and social, accessible and convenient for students; a goal that the move-out policy directly opposes.
Students shouldn’t have to request an extension at all, but for the sake of staggering departure times, students should be able to request and receive an extension for a much broader list of reasons than that which currently exists.
In doing so, McMaster can make exam season a little less strenuous for the students who paid to live on-campus until the end of term.
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By: Drew Simpson
The Division of Labour exhibit portrays sustainable ways of creating art while also looking at the difficulties of creating a sustainable art career. Housed in the Workers Arts and Heritage Centre’s main gallery space until April 20 and accompanied by a panel discussion, Division of Labour warns of the scarcity of resources, labour rights and living wages of artists.
Division of Labour also serves as an educational tool to communicate and start discourse around the issues regarding sustainability. The Socio-Economic Status of Artists in the greater Toronto and Hamilton area discussion, which was facilitated by Divisions of Labour curator, Suzanne Carte, and included panelists Sally Lee, Michael Maranda and Angela Orasch, encouraged artists to be vocal and seek action.
“People want to be around artists, but they really don’t. If they were living in the reality that a lot of artists are living in, it would not be favourable. What they want is the pseudo creative lifestyle. They want to be around beautiful things and smart people, but they don’t really want to be assisting with making sure artists are making a living wage and that artists are being supported financially,” explained Carte.
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For emerging artists, this exhibits presents a valuable learning experience as it informs them of community issues. This topic is particularly important since emerging artists are often asked to work for free, often under a pretense that the work will add to their portfolios or lead to exposure. However, Carte argues that asking artists to work for free devalues the work they do.
“Because you are emerging, and because you’re new to the practice does not mean that any institution, organization or individual business, whatever it might be, can take advantage of you and use it as exposure… it’s not about gaining experience — I can gain experience on the job. I can gain experience while being compensated for what I do,” explained Carte.
While Carte encourages individuals to stand up for themselves, she understands that many artists may not be in a position to be able to reject sparse opportunities. She, alongside the panelists at the discussions, further discussed ways emerging and established artists can fight for their rights.
Lee gave an overview of organizations and advocacy groups that focus on bettering labour and housing situations and are making communities aware of gentrification and the living experiences of artists in Hamilton and Toronto.
Maranda added that lobbying for bigger grants or funding is not enough. The community also needs to be advocating for the improvement of artists’ economic status through establishing a basic or minimum hourly wage, affordable rent and transportation.
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Recently, Maranda was a quantitative researcher for the Waging Culture survey. The survey investigated home ownership in Hamilton compared to Toronto. Maranda concluded that Hamilton artists are less reliant on the private market and contribute more to the public art community.
The survey also suggested an artist migration from Toronto to Hamilton due to Hamilton’s lower rent and higher artist home ownership. This leads to a domino effect as real estate agents and developers follow the migration and aid gentrification.
Orasch stated that real estate agents and developers have secretly attended similar panel discussions. The panelists speculated they do so to learn how to market housing to artists. However, the overall sentiment was that they crossed into an artist-designated space to further exploit artists.
“Developers are taking advantage of the language that we have been able to construct for ourselves, to be able to be attractive to other artists or other individuals who feel as though they want an “artsy” experience out of life,” explained Carte.
Lee emphasized how all these surveys and discussions need to reach key decision makers. The Division of Labour exhibit and the panelists at the discussion have repeatedly stressed that talk is merely educational, the true goal is action and change.
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The month of March is an exciting time for Canadian university sports. Varsity teams across Canada spend most of March battling it out in arduous tournaments to bring national recognition to their university.
Especially during this time of year, it is easy to get swept up in the action, focusing solely on medals won or opportunities squandered, and the human side of the athletic community can be quickly forgotten. While all student-athletes at McMaster grind it out over the school year to bring home another banner, many members of the McMaster athletic community also dedicate their time to another important cause.
McMaster Athletes Care is a volunteer program whose vision is to “utilize sport as a tool to teach valuable life skills and empower youth to believe in their dreams”. In addition to community events such as January’s annual Think Pink Week, the program gives Mac athletes an opportunity to volunteer in the Hamilton community.
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From hospital visits and bringing kids to Marauders home games, MAC hosts weekly volunteer visits to the Living Rock Youth Resources program, the Kiwanis Boys and Girls Club of Hamilton, and the Routes Youth Centre. During these weekly visits, volunteers will utilize gym space to get kids active.
“It’s a really easy way to get volunteer hours to just sign up and go play sports, which is not really volunteering — it's a lot of fun,” said MAC’s Living Rock coordinator Mike Cox. “It’s a productive procrastination where, if you watch two hours of Netflix, I feel like I don't really get anything done and I feel kind of bad about that. But if you go and volunteer, you're giving your time and it's a nice break.”
Mike Cox has been involved with MAC for the last few years, initially volunteering as a member of the men’s lacrosse team to earn volunteer experience in pursuit of a teaching career. Cox eventually found himself making the weekly visits to Living Rock, a program for at-risk youth, and it became more than just a fun way to give back to the community.
“It's a reality check too, to go out and to do all that stuff,” Cox said. “It just kind of makes your bed a little warmer and your food taste a little better and all that stuff, so I know that it puts things into perspective. I started out doing it because I needed volunteer hours but like once you get out there, it kind of sucks you in and obviously I've been there ever since.”
Upon returning to Mac for a master’s degree in mathematics last year, Cox took over as MAC’s Living Rock coordinator. Enthusiastically organized by McMaster’s Coordinator for Community and Alumni Engagement, Nicole Grosel, the executive committee is full of members like Cox, each committed to coordinating the various events of the program.
Living Rock focuses on an older age group compared to the other weekly visits, so while it can be a challenge to get the older kids to participate in physical activity, which is the program’s main focus, the quality time spent with the members of these programs is still important to them.
“It feels good to see these people who stop coming for good reasons, like they don't have to be there because they found an apartment or because they've found a better job or they moved on,” Cox said. “It's a cool feeling to kind of see them through all that stuff and see where they started and see where they ended up.”
In addition to giving kids an outlet and an additional support system, getting varsity athletes to interact with kids in the community serves MAC’s goal of inspiring and motivating kids. In addition to showing them the importance of living a physically active life, student-athletes can share opportunities that can come from playing high-level sports, like scholarships and important relationships.
“Volunteering is always important and all of those kids they appreciate it, and I know they do. It's just good for McMaster and it's good for your soul,” Cox said. “To show that the athletes do have, amongst their busy schedules, that we can give back a little bit and show that McMaster Athletics isn't just about winning championships, it's about showing that we can give back and that we can recognize that we're very fortunate people.”
Not only does MAC help student-athletes appreciate their position, but it also allows some of the lesser-covered sports to gain some recognition as important parts of the Marauders community, such as the women’s lacrosse team who brought in a sizeable donation for a clothing drive and logged the most volunteer minutes for Think Pink Week.
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Giving student-athletes from any sport a fun and easily accessible way to give back to the community, MAC continues to be a great service that deserves to be recognized as an invaluable resource for the Hamilton community. While giving student-athletes an opportunity to appreciate their own lives, MAC is helping to inspire a new generation of athletes.
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For many students, living in residence is an important part of the first year experience. In recent years, universities across the country have had to act quickly to meet the increased demand for residence space on campus.
McMaster has 12 residence buildings that house approximately 3,700 students. The demand for student housing, however, is far higher. Currently, there is only enough residence space for about 40 per cent of incoming first year students.
McMaster is one of the only universities in Ontario that does not provide guaranteed campus housing for first year students. In order to be guaranteed admission to residence, students must meet a minimum grade average. All other students are placed on a waitlist.
In 2016, McMaster had to fit 200 additional students into residence due to higher than anticipated enrollment numbers. As an immediate solution, double rooms were converted into three person units.
The Living Learning Centre currently being built on the north end of campus will help to meet the need for residence space. In addition to classrooms and student services, it will also offer 500 suite and traditional-style residence rooms.
But there is only so much space on campus. In order to meet the rapidly increasing demand for residence space, universities across Canada are rushing to create new housing options.
One novel yet controversial approach to the problem of minimal housing space comes from the University of British Columbia’s “nano suites” pilot project.
Enrolment numbers at UBC have been steadily increasing and have led to space and resource shortages. The university is now considering scaling back admission of international students, according to UBC’s student-run newspaper The Ubyssey.
Nano suites are 140 square foot housing units containing a bed, desk, bathroom and kitchen. A desk sits under the bed, which can retract into the wall to save space.
The nano suites will account for 71 rooms in a new 362 unit student residence building on UBC’s campus.
One of the main draws of the nano suites is the cost. Each unit costs around $700 a month which, compared to Vancouver’s notoriously high rent costs, is a strong draw for students.
However, living in such a small space is not a feasible option for everybody. The Ubyssey notes that the units are less than double the size of a minimum-sized single occupancy Canadian prison cell.
While scaling down the size of residence rooms is one approach to the problem, the more common approach is to build residences off campus.
Private developers have noticed this trend. In some cities such as Waterloo and Toronto, the demand for student residences is so high that private companies have built student residences independently of the universities.
Since privately operated residences are not affiliated with universities, students do not get access to the same benefits and support systems that are typically available in traditional residences. Additionally, privately owned residences are often far more expensive than traditional options.
Due to a lack of government funding for residence construction, many universities are unable to build their own new residence buildings. In recent years Canadian universities have begun exploring public-private partnerships to fund university-affiliated student residences.
York University, U of T and McGill are among the growing cohort of Canadian universities who have partnered with private companies to fund student residence buildings.
In 2017, McMaster announced its plan to follow suit. The university bought a group of nine Westdale houses around campus for $9.5 million with the plan to develop a multi-storey residence building in partnership with Knightstone capital management, a Toronto-based company that specializes in student residences.
While the construction will be handled privately, McMaster will run the residence as part of the university-wide student housing system.
The proposed first phase of the residence will have 950 beds, and there will an additional 455 if there is sufficient demand.
In addition to the Westdale residence, McMaster is also partnering with Knightstone to build a residence in downtown Hamilton for graduate students and their families.
Knightstone aims to build residences that challenge the perception of unclean, unsafe student living. Their website claims that they cater to the new generation of students with higher expectations about their student living conditions.
“These expectations, taken together with security, cost and cleanliness as their parents’ hot buttons, have created consumers that seek a student residence experience at a level that corresponds to their home life,.” read a part of their site.
Some of the new privately developed student residences across Canada more closely resemble luxury condominiums than traditional student dormitories.
CampusOne is a student residence in downtown Toronto that houses students from the University of Toronto, Ryerson and Ontario College of Art and Design. The building houses movie theatres and a fitness studio, and the website advertises Feng Shui compliant rooms.
While privately and jointly funded residences offer luxury, they also tend to be more expensive than university owned buildings. A standard room at CampusOne, for example, costs about $1700 a month, not including the meal plan.
McMaster has yet to announce the costs of the new residence buildings in Westdale and downtown Hamilton.
By building student residences the surrounding city, universities are better able to meet the increasing demand for housing. However, building residences off campus means that universities must account for the needs of the surrounding community members.
The proposed Westdale residence concerned residents, who worried that the height and density of the proposed building would alter the community. A letter from Ainslie Wood/Westdale Community Association Of Resident Homeowners Inc. to the city of Hamilton expressed concern about foot and vehicle traffic and, as well as the plan for yearly move in and move out.
“We understand the need of the University, and we endorse a development on the proposed site; however, we feel that this development in its present form will have long-lasting negative effects on the immediate community,” states the letter.
Community resistance to off-campus student residences is not unique to Hamilton.
In 2013, a proposed private residence for U of T students faced similar backlash from members of the surrounding community. The Harbord village residents’ association found issues with the proposed building’s height and density, among other concerns.
A new proposal was announced this past summer that accounted for the concerns raised by the HVRA. However, it took five years of negotiation to come to the agreement.
While building residences off campus may be necessary to accommodate for increasing enrollment, it requires careful consultation with community members.
As university admissions continue to rise across the country, so too will the demand for student housing. While many incoming students want the first year residence experience, the future of campus living is anything but traditional.
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By: Sasha Dhesi
A few weeks ago, my mom left the country to visit some relatives. With me in Hamilton and my brother juggling university, work and a research job, neither of us are home particularly often, leaving my dad by himself. My dad started calling me at least twice a day, and began asking me what he was supposed to do for fun now that his wife and kids were too busy for him. I had to confront something I’d never really considered before: my dad’s just as needy as I am.
I never really viewed my parents as people who needed me in any way. Sure, I help out around the house and take care of my parents, but it always felt more one-sided, and that I needed them for support and care. After all, while they’re a constant in my life, I’ve only been in theirs for a fraction of the time. I was lucky enough to have parents who nurtured a healthy environment for me to grow in and I saw them as superheroes, making it difficult for me to see them as people who may feel insecure from time to time.
Chances are, growing up, you saw your parents as superheroes in some sense. If you were lucky enough to live in a healthy and stable home, they took care of you and most of the problems in your life. Your parents most likely hid most issues that were affecting your family so that you could continue living a carefree childhood. But, as you grow up, this changes. Now that you are an adult, you have to face the reality that your parents are just normal people who happened to have raised you. As your parents age, you may feel the onus of their care fall onto you, their next of kin, but if you’re anything like me, that also conflicts with your growing desire for autonomy.
It’s well known that university marks the beginning of a slow break away from your parents. Even those who opt to live at home for their undergraduate degree find themselves staying later and later on campus, usually juggling school, work and a growing social life. This usually brings forth the inevitable internal dilemma of leaving your older parents on their own. My parents are both in their fifties and suffer from several chronic ailments. They both have histories of heart disease and have lost close friends and loved ones to cardiac arrest. One particular reason I have to go home sometimes is to just make sure that they’re doing okay; something I’ll admit is a little irrational. But as we get older, the dynamic between our parents undeniably changes.
I’m going to level with you: I have no idea how to deal with this. Do I give up on all my dreams of traveling and living abroad one day on the assumption that my parents may one day need me to care for them? Do I jump the gun and leave them in the lurch now, and only contact them when I need something? No matter what decision I make on Friday when I decide whether or not I want to visit them, it feels like a decision between these extremes. There’s a double whammy of guilt going on here, where I’m losing out on what I want or being overly cold to the people who raised me. It’s an odd place to teeter.
As someone who’s South Asian, a cultural clash also comes into play. For those who are unaware, many South Asian cultures stress familial bonds, and it’s not uncommon for people to live with their parents for their entire lives. I personally grew up with my dad’s grandma, who lived with us until her death in 2014. Now, my parents understand social contexts, and by no means are forcing me to stay with them for the rest of my life. But every time I mention going abroad, or looking at grad schools even a few towns away, my mom always deflates ever so slightly as she remembers that our relationship isn’t nowhere near as close as hers was with her mom.
Now that you are an adult, you have to face the reality that your parents are just normal people who happened to have raised you.
Ultimately, it’s just come down to taking it day by day. I call my mom in the morning, and my dad in the evening. I haven’t thrown away my autonomy just yet, but I’m not willing to completely separate myself from my parents. I can’t tell you some magical way to maintain your familial relationships, but I can tell you that a call goes a long way and that even just telling them that yes, you’ve eaten, and yes, your friends are fine, and no, you’re not doing drugs, can go a long way.
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By: Crystal Lobo
Ted McMeekin, Ontario’s Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and MPP for Ancaster- Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale, announced an updated Affordable Housing Strategy on March 14. This multi-faceted strategy involves an investment of $178 million across Ontario over the span of three years. It declared the construction of up to 1,500 new affordable housing units. Additionally, the announcement mentioned funding for the Community Homelessness Prevention Initiative. Furthermore, building frameworks for portable housing benefit and Supportive Housing Policy were also mentioned.
This funding from the provincial government is a positive step towards helping homeless Hamiltonians according to Mayor Fred Eisenberger.
“There are a lot of positives here that talk about many of the things that municipalities have been asking for, which is long-term care, a focus on poverty and homelessness, as well as providing benefits to residents that are having problems in terms of affordability,” said Eisenberger.
The mayor cites housing and homelessness as a significant issue in the community of Hamilton. Eisenberger acknowledges that homelessness impedes many Hamiltonians from leading stable lives and successfully providing for their families. He states that the effort in combatting this issue must be collective.
“This is a community-wide issue and resolving this issue I think is a collective responsibility for all of us. To do that we would be making some significant investments in our human capital.”
Currently, there are 6,000 people on the wait list for affordable housing in the city. Each affordable housing unit costs $200,000 to build from scratch. As such, Hamilton requires more resources than those provided by this announcement from the provincial government.
“This is a community-wide issue and resolving this issue I think is a collective responsibility for all of us."
“The amount of money they set aside here on the provincial level just kind of scratches the surface in terms of the greater need,” said Eisenberger.
Moreover, the announcement declared that developing Indigenous housing strategies in conjunction with Indigenous communities would be a priority.
“I think that's going to be a provincially-led initiative that we're certainly going to be partnering on,” said Eisenberger. He added that along with Indigenous communities, immigrants and Syrians who are new to the city will be included in the affordable housing strategy in Hamilton.
McMeekin hopes to pass the legislation for inclusionary zoning before June 9, when the provincial legislature closes for the summer. This mandate would require new construction projects to include affordable housing for people with low or moderate earnings. Eisenberger believes it is a positive step for the province and this city. However, he acknowledges that implementing inclusionary zoning will not be a simple task.
“Inclusionary zoning really has to be supported by and mandated by the city and the developing community. There's going to be a need to have some pretty intense focused discussions about how we actually achieve that so that we get the benefit of additional housing units,” said Eisenberger.
Photo Credit: Construction Specifications Canada
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Two thirds of the way through the school year, the last thing on many students’ minds is their living situation. Between midterms, final exams and group meetings, students, especially those in residence, begin to see their rooms as a place to get a few hours of sleep before racing through another day. Unfortunately, some residence rooms are dealing with new, unwanted roommates.
For the past few months, Whidden Hall, a residence in the North Quad of campus, has been contending with an outbreak of bedbugs. Once associated with squalor, bedbugs have become a common pest in recent years, with discoveries of their presence in hotels, movie theatres and on public transit.
For this reason, Kevin Beatty, McMaster’s Director of Housing and Conference Services, is reluctant to call the recent outbreak a problem. “We typically see bedbugs over the course of the year. It's not uncommon to see them. But what is uncommon in this situation is that there seems to be a bit of a flare-up,” he said. He added that while the current bout has been present in Whidden for a few months, the treatment plan was put in place fairly soon after. “We have a comprehensive bedbug response plan in residence,” he said.
According to Beatty, all Community Advisors in residence are trained in how to deal with the reporting of bedbugs. Within 24 hours of a report being issued, pest control is brought in. “If the pest control company has something called proof of pests, so an actual bedbug or some trace that it exists, then they would take the next steps which would be working with the students to execute the treatment plan.”
This treatment plan involves students washing their bed sheets, clothing and other personal effects in biodegradable plastic bags, which help heat the objects in the washing machine, a process that kills the bedbugs. Pest control also treats the room in question, and comes in 14 days later to re-treat it.
While the initial reaction to the discovery of bugs may be to move to a different location, Beatty explained that this is not an ideal procedure. He said that if students are not present in their environment, the bugs will remain inactive. “The other reason is that you don't want people to move because one of the challenging aspects of bedbugs is that they're distributed in social networks ... that's why we advise students not to go home and why we don't move them.”
At the time that spoke with Beatty, the flare-up was isolated in Whidden. Since then, reports suggest the issue has spread to Bates Residence in the University’s West Quad, but Beatty could not be reached for further comment.
“We typically see bedbugs over the course of the year ... But what is uncommon in this situation is that there seems to be a bit of a flare-up."
For his part, Beatty remains optimistic about the “flare-up” being taken care of quickly and without fanfare. “We're lucky that residence students are quick to identify which allows us to be quick to respond,” he said.
Photo Credit: Jon White/ Photo Editor
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By: Jennifer La Grassa
Searching for a decent student house to live in within the McMaster area is like searching for a needle in a haystack — you’ll simply never find it, or by the time you do it turns out that the needle belongs to someone else. Most of the student-rented houses in Hamilton have unmaintained, cookie cutter interiors that attempt to cram eight to ten students in what should comfortably fit four people at most. A prominent issue among most of the student-rented houses is that they’re old and poorly maintained. Most of them seem just about ready to collapse in on themselves and appear more run-down than they should. As a landlord, if you don’t have the money or the time to upkeep the houses that you rent, then you shouldn’t be in the business. Being a post-secondary student that lives away from home is stressful enough, let alone having to live in a house that feels like the farthest thing from a “home.”
If health and safety officials were to actually take the time to inspect all the houses that students are presented to live in, the majority of them would have to undergo serious renovations. Safety features such as smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, a ventilation fan above the stove, and proper locks on the front door are rare to come across. Another alarming commonality among houses are those whose front and back doors open up into a bedroom. Tenants shouldn’t fall asleep at night fearing that someone will knock on their front door or break into their bedroom. As for basement rooms, if there isn’t a standardized window and properly insulated walls, no human being should be expected to actually rent it. I realize the goal of a landlord may simply be to maximize their profit, but they need to stop building bedrooms out of living spaces.
During my house-hunting adventures at the beginning of this year, landlords kept insisting that their house would “go fast” and attempted to rush my housemates and me into a decision. If it’s three weeks into the New Year and your house is still on the market, then it clearly hasn’t gone fast and in that case others might be seeing an issue that we have overlooked. Another landlord requested that we make her “an offer” on the rent of the house. Remarks such as these that make me feel like landlords believe they can take advantage of students by making them bargain for the rental of a subpar house.
Just because we’re students doesn’t mean that we don’t deserve a decent place to live in. I strongly feel that if funds were available, the McMaster Off-Campus Resource Centre should expand and work with city officials and the university to better the housing options presented to students. Having more apartment buildings near campus that could house students or even just enhancing the ways in which student houses are managed would both be ideal solutions. These could encourage more students to live away from home and help those that have to live away feel more comfortable with their new surroundings.
Your horror stories (as gathered from a public Silhouette poll)
“My friends and I were house hunting last January...One of the houses we looked at literally looked like a murder could have taken place there. The house was pretty dark and the landlord seemed persistent about so many things. At the end of the tour, we told him we would get back to him about the house since we were looking for an eight month lease rather than 12 months like he was asking for. It was actually scary how demanding and annoying he was being about how he didn’t want to wait and how quickly he would be able to get documents ready.”
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“Landlord finished the tour of the house with “and here’s where my mother died,” then proceeded to stare into my very soul for a good minute and a half. I excused myself and said I needed to look at a few more places that day; she replied with a frown and said that she wished that young adults were more respectful these days while slamming the door in my face.”
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“Pretty sure we saw a crack pipe casually lying on the kitchen counter at a six-bedroom house on Stroud.”
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“One of the first houses I ever saw during my house hunting experience is one that [still] scars me...In order to enter the hobbit hole bedroom you had to crouch through a narrow hallway until you made your way into a tiny room that barely held a bed and a desk. I think Harry Potter had a better crib than that!”
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“ When we toured [the apartment], everything seemed fine -- it was clean, well-lit, no visible signs of infestation. When we moved our things in in August, the super told us that the previous tenants had ripped the baseboards out, then gave me a roach motel and left. That night, it became apparent that they’d ripped up the baseboards to try and get at the roach nests – the apartment was infested, and they were crawling behind and beneath every surface. There was a hole in the bathroom tile that went to the outside, taped over with a tarp-- we were on the 11th floor! We ended up breaking our lease and moving to another apartment, but six months on I still break into a cold sweat when I see a shadow or a bit of fluff from the corner of my eye and mistake it for a roach. 0/10 do not recommend.”
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“ HOUSE WAS SH!T.”
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Photo Credit: Kevin Bauman
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A little over three years ago, I excitedly moved into my student house. I predicted it would soon become the backdrop of my soon-to-be reality TV-worthy student life, but instead I was welcomed into my new home with a slew of landlord upsets. With everything from bathroom leaks, to broken decks, to a mysterious older man who used to enter our home at night to fix the plumbing (yes, this was as terrifying as it sounds), at times my student house was more of a problem than a personal oasis.
At the time, I didn’t realize that all of these issues were at the fault of my landlord, since he often asserted his authority in a way that made myself and my housemates feel responsible.
We are definitely not the only students to be in a situation like this. Tenants of Westdale and Ainsliewood homes have often fallen victim to landlord traps that place them in uncomfortable and unlawful positions. In an effort to combat this problem, the MSU’s Student Community Support Network has launched the #MacLivesHere campaign, a Twitter and recently MUSC-centric campaign that will help students become better acquainted with leasing homes and give them an opportunity to share their grievances.
The #MacLivesHere campaign is, in theory, a great idea. So many students get into signing leases without knowing all their rights, and this has led to complications in the past where students end up getting the short end of a deal that is supposed to be in their favour.
The only unfortunate part of the campaign is that it is run by a somewhat overshadowed MSU service, the SCSN.
The MSU is a big organization. It is comprised of both large and small services, with some getting more attention than others. This structure is something expected, but it also begs the question, how necessary are all of our services, and can our money be better used serving groups with the power to make campaigns noticed and accessible?
The SCSN is a service that is meant to help students build positive relationships with the Hamilton community. Unfortunately, even though their aim is noble, some of their efforts and campaigns often get overlooked when larger groups take center stage. It could be a valuable and well-used service for students, but when larger promotions sidestep its actions, the group just appears to be another accessory of the MSU that helps keen students piggyback on a service to work their way towards a future full-time job with the Union.
As a person who is more informed about campus events and services than most, I still don’t know all that much about the SCSN. It is one of multiple MSU services that passes just enough under the radar that very few seem to be checking up on them — this is a disservice both to them and the student body.
Perhaps its time to take a good look at our services and decide which ones are worth our time, and figure out how we can better use our resources to make those shine. It would be great to see more students exposed to the Mac Lives Here campaign, but as far as many students are concerned, SCSN hasn’t even signed a lease.
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By: Saad Ejaz
According to MSU Diversity Services Abilities Coordinator Sophie Geffros, there is a positive wave of support and engagement for making campus more accessible for students with disabilities.
On Oct. 8, Diversity Services and the University Affairs Committee hosted the Second Annual Accessibility Forum.
The event focused on how individuals with disabilities and other student groups can come together to share stories and brainstorm ways to improve the accessibility experience at McMaster. The topics of interest focused on how disabilities, chronic medical concerns, mental health issues and madness affect student life.
The theme of this year’s event was “Breaking the Stigma,” and unlike other discussions around accessibility, the focus was to further explore the other challenges common to being a student aside from attending classes.
“We had small group discussions, all of which were lead by facilitators with disabilities, and we talked about things like social events, attending parties, disclosing to an employer and relationships,” says Geffros. The third year Philosophy and Biology student stated, “The end result of all of this is that, by working with University Affairs, I will generate a report based on what we heard from students who attended it, and actually will make recommendations to how we can change Mac and perhaps even the McMaster accessibility policy.”
The committees are also working on a Maccess service along with other bi-weekly support events, which are aimed at strengthening the McMaster community in particular for students with disabilities.
The event was a great success. However, Geffros said it is only the first step. The real work is yet to come in order to implement ideas and continue to build the already positive McMaster community.
Photo Credit: Mike Beattie
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