This year’s emergency housing for international students holds space for 120 students and is nearing capacity. So far though, only a handful of students who have booked a room have already checked in.
In the hedged court outside his accommodation, Oscar Price-Nowak saddles up his bike under the evening sun, to go do some shopping before he heads out for the night with his KEI group.
Oscar is one of the students residing in the emergency housing on the Plutolaan provided by the municipality in collaboration with student housing association SSH. The first-year chemistry student moved into his temporary room when housing opened last Friday.
The building is still mostly empty, with only thirteen students out of those that have booked or reserved rooms having checked in so far. There are less than twenty spaces still free.
No result
Oscar’s story is a common one for internationals. He started looking for rooms in May and spent three months searching, sending messages nearly every day and trying to organise viewings online from his home in the UK. However, his efforts didn’t yield many results, as his attempts were mostly met with ‘sorry, you have to be here in person’. He ended up with only one viewing and no room.
‘There was a bit of a scare at one point, because I had only a month left to get a room’, he says. So at the last minute, he booked SSH’s emergency housing. He ended up with a twin room, which means he’ll have to share it. ‘But my roommate hasn’t arrived yet, so I have just got my own private room. I don’t really have any complaints; the actual room is good.’
The Plutolaan building has 64 rooms – 8 single and 56 twins – across three floors with one shared kitchen and shower room on each floor. Students will pay 800 euros total for their rooms until October 16, when the housing officially closes.
Ongoing issue
‘We have based the demand for extra places on the influx of international students in recent years’, says Natascha van ’t Hooft, municipality spokesperson.
In 2021, around 600 international students were homeless in the city at the start of the academic year, relying on a couch surfing network and emergency shelters, which sparked protest and an occupation of the UG’s Academy building by the group Shelter our Students (SOS) in hopes of forcing the UG to deal with the issue.
Last year the situation was less dire, with fewer students in need of emergency accommodation, which the municipality expects to be the case again this year.
No backup
There are no backup locations if demand for emergency housing does exceed what is currently available, Van ’t Hooft says. However, the municipality has also partnered with the room rental platform Hospi Housing, to provide sixty more temporary rooms during peak periods, which brings the total number of emergency spaces to 180.
Emergency spaces with the SSH will only be offered until the middle of October, as all students are expected to have found rooms by then due to increased availability, says Van ’t Hooft.
Both the UG and municipality have repeated their calls to international students this summer not to come to Groningen if they do not have a place to live by August 1, though they are likely to come regardless.
Oscar, meanwhile, is hopeful he will have a more stable place to live long-term soon. He’s got a viewing for a room available from September.