More than half of students have expressed that they found looking for accommodation “challenging” and were “worried.”
The student population in Edinburgh makes up one fifth of the city’s total population, but students are struggling to find appropriate accommodation, faced by increasing rents and a competitive housing market.
The Student surveyed students about the housing crisis in Edinburgh and how stressed they felt about finding accommodation for next year.
More than half of students said they needed a part-time job to afford rent.
While nearly 80 per cent of students reported being on student loans, and all of them have expressed that the funding is inadequate.
95 per cent of students said that the university was unhelpful in sorting out accommodation.
This is against a 12 per cent student homelessness rate for students at university, according to the National Union of Students.
When prompted students told The Student that:
“The housing market is ridiculous and the university does nothing about it, students living in emergency accommodation at Pollock was embarrassing.”
Another student commented:
“I live in Edinburgh Student Housing Co-Operative which is luckily able to help its members out with rent reductions.”
Student charity, SLURP, campaigns for housing justice in Edinburgh and Scotland.
Volunteer Coordinator for SLURP, Noah Brown, remarked that: “A huge part of SLURP’s campaign is getting an emergency accommodation guarantee for students in the university who are homeless.
“We recently had a motion pass with 97 per cent of votes in the student council (EUSA) suggesting a general improvement in alleviating student homelessness.
“This will add more pressure to the university.”
Students also expressed frustration with the lack of university accommodation, with solutions like the housing co-op cited as an alternative.
When asked about university accommodation Noah remarked that he is “very against Purpose Built Student Accommodation (PPSA).”
“[In a PPSA] you don’t have the same rights as a normal tenant.”
“The university has emergency accommodation, but they don’t advertise that well enough.
“Our resources are quite limited, we try to get the university to collect data on this, but they have refused to engage with our findings.”
“Homelessness takes many forms, it’s been so normalised for a lot of students that sofa surfing is just part of the experience, but it should not have to be.
“They need to be aware that this is not ok.”
“Marchmont Road School, Edinburgh” by itmpa is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.