Discrimination from landlords is pervasive in McMaster’s off-campus housing market. Students and grads are finally speaking up and working to address the problem.
In his second year, Alex, a recent McMaster alumnus who requested to be referred to under an alias, and his friends were looking at off-campus housing. With money in hand, they approached an owner.
“We talked to the owner. [Though] he was browsing groups, he seemed more interested in renting to an all-caucasian group than he was to us,” said Alex.
Though Alex and his friends were keen on making the deposit, the owner would not let them.
“He definitely seemed like he was going to take the other group should they have wanted it, though,” said Alex.
After sending some caucasian female friends to the owner with the same deposit, however, Alex was able to secure the place.
A second-year McMaster student experienced problems with her landlord after moving in. Despite being able to speak English fluently, her landlord refuses to communicate with tenants except for the one who spoke the landlord’s first language.
“She does not respond to my texts anymore so I stopped messaging her,” said the student. “One day she sent a contractor and needed to speak to one of us so I took the phone from the contractor. I was explaining the situation when she interrupted me and asked if [the favourite tenant] was in the house, when I said yes, the landlord asked to speak to [her] instead of me.”
Another McMaster student said her landlord started policing the social situation in her house.
“The landlord had made many comments about regulating who comes into the house and who comes over [specifically any male guests] due to the fact that we were ‘women who needed to be taken care of’ and made it clear that he can check in at any time because of safety concerns,” said the student.
“[Students of colour] tell us that they’ve been looking for places for months, and I doubt it’s just bad luck,”
Property Manager
Spotted Properties
Most of the discrimination, however, manifests itself before tenancy. According to a property manager from Spotted Properties, a local consultation and management service that works with landlords during the vetting process, a handful of landlords request student tenants from particular demographics.
The discrimination, in large part, stems from the fact that these landlords are part of an older generation.
“The[ir] bias ranges from gender, university program, race, dress style and the list can go on,” said the property manager, who asked to remain unnamed.
Landlords often explicitly discriminate against students from minority and marginalized groups.
“One time, this elderly lady whispered to me that she doesn’t want to rent to Indian students,” he said.
Academic problems are also grounds for discrimination.
“We get clients who say they only want students in health science…. We also get clients who say they don’t want any social science students.”
Students of colour are disproportionately disadvantaged.
“[Students of colour] tell us that they’ve been looking for places for months, and I doubt it’s just bad luck,” said the property manager. “We started keeping tabs on this and found that towards the end of August, we see an influx of students of colour.”
When asked how Spotted Properties is curbing the discrimination, the property manager said that, though the business has yet to take concrete steps, he believes that education is key.
“We try to disconnect landlords and tell them that, as a company, we can’t accommodate them…. But we want to do more,” he said.
The property manager noted that, because many landlords are parents of McMaster students and grads, the university could also be doing more to reduce discrimination.
“Even if McMaster sent out some awareness information about the laws governing tenancy and the inaccuracy of stereotypes, it could make a difference,” he said.
While increased education may not remedy the problem entirely, it’s a step that needs to be taken.
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Working towards a goal of providing further residence space for first-year students, McMaster University has purchased a group of nine houses surrounding campus for $9.5 million with a plan to develop a multi-storey, student residence building.
McMaster purchased a cluster of houses that are located adjacent to the university between Forsyth and Dalewood Avenue from Scholar Properties, an investor group that specializes in off-campus properties throughout Hamilton, London and Waterloo. The group owns several other properties within the neighbourhood and had been planning to demolish the nine houses in order to develop student residences before the sale to McMaster.
The lot provides a total of 1.45 acres of land for McMaster to develop into a multi-storey student residence complex. Working in partnership with Knightstone, a Toronto-based development company experienced in building student residences, the project is expected to be comprised of 800 beds.
There has been an incredibly high demand for on-campus student residence space in recent years. The 12 current on-campus residences are only able to house nearly 3,700 of 6,170 incoming first year students, leaving upwards of 40 per cent of first year students to look for housing alternatives.
“McMaster is at a disadvantage because it is one of the only universities in Ontario that cannot provide a first year on campus housing guarantee,” said Gord Arbeau, McMaster’s director of communications and public affairs. “This means some students coming to McMaster are left to find housing off campus, while other highly skilled and qualified applicants may choose another university.”
Once complete, this development will be managed under the McMaster residence system and allow incoming students another housing option with the same codes of conduct, services and benefits as the other residences on campus.
The project’s plan show the structure to have its highest point facing Main Street West, then to be tiered back towards Traymore Avenue, eliminating shadows on area homes while creating interesting architectural elements.
Once complete, this development will be managed under the McMaster residence system and allow incoming students another housing option with the same codes of conduct, services and benefits as the other residences on campus.
Another project in the works is the McMaster Living and Learning Centre. Currently under construction where temporary buildings T28 and T29 once stood, the new building will be compromised of 12 storeys, eight of which will be student residences. The remaining floors will consist of classrooms and student services, including the Student Wellness Centre, Student Accessibility Services and the Children’s Centre daycare.
The LLC sees a total of 500 new suite and traditional style spaces to house first year students, contributing to the ongoing demand for further residence space on campus. The project is set to be completed by September 2019.
“[The Living and Learning building and the Main Street residence] are required to meet existing demand. There is a shortfall in terms of campus housing for first-year students. With these two new residences online, well be able to better meet the current demand of first year students,” said Arbeau.
The university is currently beginning the planning stages of this new development and a completion date has not yet been determined.
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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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By: Rafik El Werfalli
Mostacci suggests that any general message for students is to, “Be responsible and never disable the smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms.” According to new legislation that came into effect in 2013, Bill 77, the Hawkins-Gignac Act, it is mandatory that all homes with fuel burning appliances be equipped with carbon monoxide alarms.
Mostacci mentioned that some of the signs of carbon monoxide poisoning are difficult to recognize. Some of these symptoms include feeling lethargic, confused and having flu like symptoms. “It is really important to recognize the symptoms of carbon monoxide” he said. If the carbon monoxide alarm is going off and you are experiencing these symptoms, Mostacci advised students to keep the windows shut, leave the house and to call 911.
Never go back into the house in search for items. “Items can be replaced. Lives cannot,” Mostacci said.
Have a working smoke alarm, and carbon monoxide monitor in your home at all times.
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Keep a fire extinguisher in a convenient location in the house.
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Never leave anything on the stove unattended. If a fire ignites in the pot use a lid to cover it and never carry it outside.
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Do not place extension cables near/under flammable material such as carpets.
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Develop a plan with housemates for an escape route if a fire breaks out.
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By: Jennifer La Grassa
“You’re living with five other girls?! And you only have two bathrooms? Good luck with that.”
“Just make sure nobody brings candles and lights them, that’s the last thing you need to worry about.”
“Oh man, six girls? Can you imagine when all of your menstrual cycles sync and PMS hits at the same time?”
Upon entering my second year of university, whenever I mentioned that I would be living with five friends in an off-campus house, I usually received one of the above responses or a variation of all three.
Fortunately, it went a lot better than everyone expected. We lived in harmony, didn’t set the house on fire and continue to be friends to this day. I am by no means a student-house-living-guru, but I hope to provide you with some advice that will ease the initial struggles you may encounter.
Upon first moving in, you and your housemates should have a “house meeting.” Even if you lived with the same people the previous year, it’s always good to start fresh and remind everyone of the rules that were put into place, as well as those that need amendment. For you student house virgins, a house meeting will help you organize and plan for the year ahead.
One of the main topics of your discussion should be how and when the house will be cleaned. I suggest making a schedule that rotates weekly and putting it up on the fridge; this allows everyone to have a clear outline of their duties and not get stuck with the same task each week.
I can’t stress enough how important it is to keep your house clean, if not for your own comfort then for the peace of mind that you won’t be having any other housemates moving in (ones that may be small, furry and not much help in paying rent). As well, if you are planning to make household items—eg, paper towels, dish soap, dish sponges—communal, discuss the purchase of these items.
Other topics of discussion should include cleaning up after oneself (specifically not letting dishes pile up), having friends over, playing music, and sharing food. Each of these topics doesn’t need a strict rule, but you should make sure that you’re all on the same page about how they should be dealt with.
Should conflict arise, promoting communication and calling a house meeting is the best solution. If something isn’t working for you, don’t allow your frustration to build up to the point where you’re leaving passive aggressive notes around the house.
The best way to deal with a difference of ideas is to be upfront and tell your housemates what needs to be changed. If you’re not one for confrontation, then make sure to create a Facebook group to politely mention your concerns.
A Facebook group or group chat of some sort will come in handy when discussing any and all household matters, especially for times when you are too busy to gather for a house meeting.
Remember, everyone has their quirks and the stress of university life can make anyone irritable, so try to be understanding and accommodate the needs of others. Once the technicalities of living together have been put aside, my best piece of advice is to go with the flow and enjoy the experience.
After a long day of classes, coming home to have five of my best friends eager to hear about my day was the most rewarding part of it all. My housemates became my family, and I truly hope yours do too.
Last April, my housemates and I backed out of a potentially exploitative and disastrous lease. We have the tenants at the time to thank for reaching out to inform us of their landlord’s undeniably shady behaviour. Many students aren’t so lucky.
On Sept. 6, a story was shared on Spotted at Mac about a landlord who took two months of rent but never responded when the student wanted to move in. More students commented about their own experiences with this particular landlord, urging others to avoid renting from them.
This landlord is only one of many who will manipulate and deceive students to rent their rooms. The students are then stuck in a twelve or, if they’re lucky, eight-month long contract. Some rooms and houses don’t meet the safety standards, or aren’t up to code by Ontario rental guidelines, but are being rented out anyway due to a lack of resources, education and better options.
When the time comes to rent a place near campus, students find themselves too overwhelmed by the process of house-hunting, and lacking guidance, they often make uninformed decisions. Houses go quickly and potential landlords warn that they have another group interested in the house so they better act fast.
While some find the ads on Kijiji and Craigslist, others take the more cautious route of looking at McMaster’s Off Campus Resource page. Unfortunately, it does not appear as though the university takes any steps to regulate and verify the ads posted on their page, or the contracts that the landlord will ask the university’s students to sign.
It is the university’s responsibility, in some capacity, to regulate the landlords who are renting to students, especially in the vicinity of campus. Living situations for students who rent are of paramount importance to their health, both physical and mental, as well as their success in school.
Although the Off-Campus Resource Centre exists, and I would recommend that anyone who has renting troubles visit them for advice, it is not enough. The university allows landlords to place room ads on their website, giving these landlords the privilege of the legitimacy that comes from being connected to the McMaster website. If landlords benefit from this relationship, it should also come with greater responsibility and stricter rules.
In addition to asking more from the landlords, the Off-Campus Resource Centre should also focus on outreaching to students, educating them on the specifics of renting, the illegalities that often sneak their way into year-long contracts, and the dangers of many potential residences that are being rented out.
Ultimately, McMaster has a responsibility to its students to ensure that things it affiliates itself with are safe and legal. Although students can post their renting horror stories on social media and hope it reaches their peers, it is not our sole responsibility to make sure we’re not exploited and manipulated by landlords.
Whether you just moved on, have been living in your house for a while, or are still looking for a place to call your own for the next few years, don’t forget that your safety and health comes first. Landlords aren’t allowed to bully you into accepting lesser conditions, and while pursuing legal action can be a hassle, it helps you and future tenants create better conditions for McMaster students.
It’s well known that McMaster’s enrolment is high and the campus is short on space, but this month, off-campus and commuter students at McMaster will be given a new place to hang out.
A new lounge is opening on campus, dedicated to off-campus and commuter students. The lounge, named “The Lodge,” will occupy the space in Wentworth House that was formerly taken by The Phoenix.
The aim of the space is to help commuter students of all years connect to Mac by giving them a place to relax and study.
Jennifer Kleven, Director of the Off-Campus Resource Centre, thinks the lounge will make a noticeable difference to off-campus and commuter students, who may not feel the sense of community that residence students do.
“Sometimes they feel this disconnect,” she explained. “And it’s been shown that the more connected they feel to the school, the higher their grades will often be. And we think that’s really important.”
The project of establishing the lounge was started early in 2012, and it has been a joint effort between the Off-Campus Resource Centre and McMaster’s Office of Student Affairs, with input from the Society of Off-Campus Students (SOCS).
Gina Robinson, Assistant Dean of Student Affairs and a major advocate for the lounge, had a hard time hiding her excitement about the project.
As a Mac grad and a former commuter student, Robinson appreciates the needs of students today.
“I’m really passionate about the commuters,” she said. “I can remember being a commuter student—it was difficult at that time.
She described how students once used Hamilton Hall as a communal space, before the student centre was built. With straightforward amenities—tables and chairs, a couple TV’s, and a microwave—it felt to her like a home away from home. She hopes current commuter students can have that same feeling.
Robinson and Kleven looked at research on commuter students from American schools such as the University of Ohio and University of Miami, as such research hasn’t been produced by Canadian universities, despite the trend of “refocusing on off-campus and commuter students.”
Although the idea has been widely praised, questions have been raised about the choice of location for the lounge. The old Phoenix, while it can accommodate a large number of students, is in Wentworth House, which is set to be torn down this spring to make way for the university’s new Wilson Building for Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences.
Kleven explained that they saw the space as a good opportunity to launch the initiative as a pilot project.
“We all know space is tight on the campus,” she said. ”So why not take advantage of it while we can? It was going to sit vacant, nobody was going to be using it, so why not use it?”
“We wanted to create a space now,” explained Robinson, emphasizing that there is a pressing need for a lounge.
With a temporary space, however, they needed to be careful with money.
“When we were spending money we were trying to do it very carefully,” said Robinson.
The project received $25,000 from the Student Life Enhancement Fund for the project, which will be spent on furniture for the space. The remaining $20,000-$25,000 that have been budgeted will come from the Office of Student Affairs.
Although some of the costs are one-time—for example, the wireless will cost about $5000—Robinson and Kleven believe it’s worth it.
“It’ll be good money spent if this is a successful initiative, and then we can find more permanent space,” said Robinson.
Finding permanent space for The Lodge is something the team can only hope for at this point. Although Kleven and Robinson have appealed to the university administration for a permanent space, it’s not easy to find on such a packed campus.
Explained Kleven, “we’re hoping that we’re going to get hordes of students…[so] this will be an obvious example to the administration that we need this type of space on a permanent basis.”
Alvand Mohtashami
The Silhouette
Westdale hosts mix of students and permanent residents, providing a campus-town feel. Yet along with that comes a frustration from both groups, as students want to experience the freedom of being away from home and residents seek a quiet and clean environment.
While resident reactions to this past Welcome Week vary depending on the street, community events like PJ Parade and Community Clean-Up have given students a stronger first impression of the community entering the school year.
However, it is through the school year that tensions can build up.
Kenneth Moyle is a 12-year homeowner in Westdale and a board member of Ainslie Wood Westdale Community Association (AWWCA), an advocacy group for permanent residents in the community. He cites the two main concerns of residents as being loud noise and messy properties.
“McMaster and undergraduate life are part of Westdale. When you live in Westdale, you’re living around families, just as you did at home. The same rules of common courtesy still apply now that you are in a house of your own.”
While not all student houses are disruptive, the inconsiderate behaviour of a few can put a bad label on all student houses. Still, Moyle insists it would be hard to find residents who want all the students to go away.
The McMaster Students Union, conscious of the relationship between students and Westdale residents, runs a service called the Student Community Support Network (SCSN) to help develop a sense of community in the Westdale area.
Erika Richter is this year’s SCSN Coordinator and organizes the Resident Buddy and Snow Angels programs, which provide students with volunteer opportunities to connect to residents. These programs complement Hamilton 101 and By-Law 101 initiatives that teach students about common considerations of living off-campus.
The programs keep Westdale a balanced neighborhood, Richter says, and keeps conflicts from developing. She urges students to experience the city and get to know the community, as this will enrich the student experience and provide a different perspective on student life.
“When you make an effort to be a good neighbour, you’re helping to keep Westdale a place where students and permanent residents want to live,” said Moyle, “and what you do can effect Westdale and McMaster for years to come.”
