International students scrambling to find rentals amid soaring prices and scams

Sowmya Gayatri has no idea where she'll be living once she lands in Canada on Aug. 25. 

Gayatri has spent all summer trying to find a rental space for when she starts the first year of her program at Fanshawe College in London, Ont., but so far she's had no luck. With less than two weeks before the fall semester starts, the 21-year-old is struggling.

"It's been really hard, I'm not even able to enjoy the moment that I'm coming to Canada because of this, it's something that's bothering me a lot," she told CBC London from her hometown in Andhra Pradesh, India. 

The international student has never been to Canada and is relying on platforms like Facebook and Kijiji to search for available listings. But instead of housing options, she's seeing fake accounts, scams, and accommodations that her student budget simply cannot afford.  

"I've been checking out a few posts on Facebook and so many of them have been asking us to do a security deposit just to check out the properties," she said. 

Although Gayatri has friends in the city who can check out listings on her behalf, she says in many cases the photos posted on Facebook don't reflect what the property actually looks like. Every time she makes a post, her comment section is spammed by bots that link to unrelated third party websites, drowning out any legitimate inquiries. 

This has also been Sidra Khan's experience. Khan, who will start the fourth year of her PhD at Western University next month, says she's never had this much trouble finding housing.

"I'm panicking so badly right now. I'm unable to find anything because everything is just so out of my budget," she said. "One has to be really wary while searching for options, it's just become so difficult to find a place."

Khan recalls being able to secure a decently priced room in her first year. That same place had nearly tripled in price when she checked it again this year, she said. 

Although she works as a teaching assistant at the university, Khan says she can't afford the rising rental prices with her income because she also has other expenses, including as groceries and is struggling with the overall cost of living. 

"I'm so stressed because I don't have any family in Canada. I definitely will have to borrow money from my parents, which I hate doing because I'd like to think of myself as an independent person," she said. 

In order to help its students, Fanshawe has teamed up with Places4Students at its campuses in London, St. Thomas, Woodstock, and Simcoe. The company based in St. Catharines provides academic institutions with off-campus housing solutions. Since launching in 2003, they've worked with over 200 Ontario campuses, co-owner Mark Taylor said. 

"Schools want to be most efficient as possible when recommending something for their students to use to look for off campus housing. Things like Kijiji will be full of anything and everything, and it may not include student friendly rentals, so this resource populates it with student listings near campus," he said.

Each listing includes an interactive map that shows distance to campus and commute routes, along with  up to 25 photographs of the property, 3000 characters of description available in over 100 languages, and virtual tour options. 

The pandemic's 'perfect storm'

Taylor believes that the pandemic created a perfect storm for the current housing crisis. With in-person classes resuming after two years, there are more people looking for rentals and demand is exceeding supply.

"I've heard anecdotal stories of people landing in the country, not having anywhere to stay and literally knocking on doors in the community asking people if they have a room they could rent, or they're living in their cars, so it's something that's really needed," he said. 

Ed Kimuel Ramos and his wife tirelessly searched for five months before finding a place near Fanshawe College, where his wife studies, that accommodates them and their one-year-old son. 

"Its quite stressful. It's really important for us to find a secure place for our son, especially since we're living in a foreign country," he said. 

"There are a lot of people who when you ask to see a place, they make excuses not to do video calls, or say they're out of town. We've encountered a few because we're not that particular with the standards of renting places here."

Ramos said he's grateful to have friends who warned him of these attempts, but he knows others aren't so lucky 

The influx of international students coming to London is greater than the number of rental units the city has, said Dave Smith, Fanshawe's director of retail services. 

"It'll be tougher on students this year than any other year in finding arrangements for housing," he said. "Trying to find available accommodations within a decent radius of the school is very difficult, and rates have gone up substantially." 

Both Fanshawe and Western continue to warn students about potential scams and advise them not to give any deposits or sign leases until they've seen a place in person. 

"This year, Off-Campus Housing Services added two additional summer staff members, with our office having three dedicated staff members supporting international and out-of-province students in their searches, and verifying properties," a spokesperson for Western's off-campus housing said.