MRU housing a headache: Students
Karra Smith, Contributor |
Each year, Mount Royal University’s (MRU) residence houses thousands of tenants, but as Calgary’s population continues to rise, many students are stressing about scoring a spot off the waitlist.
Between the East and West Residence buildings, MRU said in an email statement that 950 students will be housed for the 2025-26 academic year.
According to the Alberta Government, Calgary’s population has grown by 18 per cent since 2020. MRU’s residence services director, Mark Keller, says that as the city’s number of citizens increases, so has the influx of students seeking shelter on campus.
“We’ve seen over the last couple of years an increased demand for housing on campus,” he says. “We’ve gotten more applications and we’ve housed more students as the Calgary rental market has gotten a little bit more difficult in terms of space available and also pricing.”
However, in a July report by the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, housing starts are up 32 per cent compared to last year’s total. Additionally, rent in Calgary is 9 per cent cheaper than last year, according to Rentals.ca.
Nonetheless, due to the shifting population and rise in applicants, Keller says MRU residence has had to adjust the way these requests are processed.
“In the past…we would prioritize first-year students by saying ‘OK, if you applied by a certain date, we would guarantee you a spot in residence,’” he says. “We haven’t been able to do that, unfortunately, with the next couple of years simply because we weren’t able to guarantee spaces moving forward.”
To create equal opportunity for applicants, while ensuring there is a mix of both returning and new students, Keller says residence is set up on a first-come, first-served basis.
But not all students agree with this protocol, which they say has made receiving a housing offer a stressful process.
Campus housing system is skewed, students say.
“I’m not a local student. I live far away. I’m eight hours north, so if I don’t get into residence, there is nowhere for me to live,” says Madison Shannon, a student going into her fourth year living on campus.
“I didn’t even get told I was getting a place until like mid-August.”
Shannon says that she believes returning students coming from places outside of commuting distance should have priority over Calgary locals, and she’s not alone in this thought.
“I think they should take into account the distance of where people live and not just who applies first,” says second-year student Abby Weidman.
She opted to be part of the choose-a-room program, which placed her with two roommates. Weidman says that it didn’t take long to realize she and her roommates were not the right fit for one another.
Though she successfully avoided the waitlist by applying early, Weidman says that residence presented her with the hurdle of dealing with the roommate conflict on her own.
“I just felt that I was put in that situation, like I didn’t want to be in that situation. So I wish that residence would have handled that for me,” she says.
Another second-year student, Lacey Holowaty, says that she also felt tension between MRU residence services and tenants. For her, the stress was not knowing when she would get details about her housing assignment.
“I feel like it’s taking up more of my mental energy worrying about it than it should be, maybe that’s just me, but like I should be worrying about what classes I’m getting ready for and this and that, but all I can think about is res,” says Holowaty.
To help with student anxiety, she says that MRU should send out key information in a single email or outline when information will be released.
New MRU housing plan underway
With the fall semester now in full swing, MRU says it recognizes the challenges and frustration students are feeling not just in Calgary, but across the nation.
“We understand the concern by students regarding the shortage of accommodation in Calgary and in many university communities across Canada,” MRU residence services said in an email statement. “Mount Royal’s Students Association maintains an up-to-date listing of room-and-board, houses, duplexes, suites and apartments for students who do not live on campus.”
In partnership with Places4Students Inc., SAMRU’s website offers a database with several high-quality, off-campus housing options, including site features, photos, and landlord contact information.
MRU residence, with a 1,000-person maximum capacity, can house approximately 1 in 15 of its students, based on last year’s total attendance number of almost 15,800. As Calgary’s population incline shows no signs of slowing, Keller says the residence team is looking into what the future holds for on-campus housing.
“So we have started to work on a residence masterplan which will involve figuring out some demand, what students are looking for with housing, doing some cost analysis, that sort of thing,” he says.
Kellers says that different options for accommodations are being considered.
“That obviously doesn’t help for the next couple years because it’s going to take a long time to figure out what we’re going to do next,” he says. “If we do decide to build something new, that takes time as well, but conversations are definitely happening.”
