KSA Continues Petitioning for Student Housing

Campaign may ride on increased voter turnout

If the Kwantlen Student Association has its way, Kwantlen Polytechnic University could see student housing built on-campus within the next few years.

Alex Lomelino, chairperson of KSA Standing Committee on External Affairs, believes that the provincial government’s willingness to work with student associations could move the KSA’s student housing campaign forward.

“I started hearing whispers about this as early as spring of last year,” says Lomelino. “There were a couple of ideas of what it might look like, and suddenly we have a whole campaign idea.”

The campaign, organized by the KSA and the Alliance of B.C. Students, will aim to convince the provincial government to allow the construction of on-campus housing at post-secondary institutions.

Alex McGowan, the chairperson of
 the ABCS—as well as both president and vice-president external of the KSA—says that discussions about student housing have been going on at the ABCS for years.

“It has been a lobbying priority for a number of years. This year 
it was decided that it was . . . the best issue to campaign on,” says McGowan.

The campaign organizers began their advocacy of on-campus housing for students earlier this summer, through advertisements during summer Welcome Week. In September, the KSA and the ABCS intend to continue the promotion of the campaign.

“Across all campuses we’ll launch a petition calling for the construction of residences,” says McGowan.

The ABCS will also be publishing a research paper on the social benefits of in-residence housing, and why more universities and colleges should have them.

“We want to show that we have all our ducks in a row and that this is a good idea for anyone who wants to dig a little deeper,” says McGowan. “A comparable institution of our size anywhere else in Canada would have residence housing.”

The KSA and the ABCS claim that the construction of student housing will also relieve some pressure from the housing market and infrastructure, since fewer students will be using the transit system or driving on the roads.

“There is data that supports that student housing would have a positive effect on not only students’ lives, but also the lives of people in the Lower Mainland, specifically in response to the housing crisis,” says Lomelino.

However, the government has not yet made the construction of new student housing on post-secondary campuses a priority.

“The ABCS has been asking for a couple of years to just allow universities to submit an application to take on debt [and] build residence housing that’s self-financing, because the students pay a residence fee that services the debt,” says McGowan. “The administration recognized that we should have it and they’re ready to build it if the funds are made available.”

There is also evidence supporting the notion that political parties have a vested interest in harnessing the youth vote. In February, Statistics Canada found that just over 69 per cent of Canadians aged 18 to 24 voted in last year’s federal election. Youth turnout was only 55 per cent in 2011.

With this in mind, both the KSA and the ABCS have synchronized the launch of this campaign with the upcoming provincial election.

”The goal [of the campaign] is to get as many students as possible to sign the petition to recognize that this is a big issue, and to see the construction of residence housing as being a solution,” says McGowan.

“The provincial government is going to be looking for the student vote,” says Lomelino. “If they want the student vote, then they have to campaign on behalf of students.”