Home is where the heart isThe problem of student housing

Student protest for action on student housing. Dec 2008. Photo: Kwanghui Lim

Trumped up headlines and inflated reportage may be the stuff of newspaper sales as opposed to hard fact, but Melbourne’s student housing market has endured enough bad press in recent years to convince even the sceptics that something was amiss. Claims of unscrupulous landlords, inflated rent prices and exploitative practices have plagued a sector that houses almost 50 per cent of the CBD’s 80 000-plus residential population, many of whom are international students.

According to Garry Thomson (BA (Hons) 1981, MA 1985), Director of Wellbeing Services at the University, a range of market conditions has converged to create a student-housing situation that he openly describes as ‘grim’.

‘I think there’s a broad crisis in affordable housing for students, and the University of Melbourne is in an unenviable position,’ he says.

‘We’re in a prime location within an inner city environment and that brings with it the pressure of affordable housing and the return that landlords expect to get on their properties.’ Roger Deutscher (BAgrSc 1981), Manager of Student Housing and Financial Aid, agrees. He’s seeing a far greater proportion of students under financial strain. ‘There are some facts that are beyond dispute, which are the shortage of beds for students, and in particular, the shortage of affordable beds,’ he offers.

‘Students are more financially stressed and are taking on more part-time work and that is having a direct impact on their ability to engage with their studies.’

According to Mr Deutscher, 70 per cent of University of Melbourne students are undertaking part-time work at an average of fifteen hours per week and the University has seen increases in the number of students applying for housing grants. Meanwhile, students who once successfully rented on the private market in the inner northern suburbs of Carlton, Fitzroy and Brunswick, have been pushed much further out.

‘There is a definite need for affordable housing and it does seem that affordable housing is something that the market cannot produce,’ says Mr Deutscher. ‘There must be some intervention.’

‘I think it reflects the national dilemma we face in finding affordable, quality housing,’ adds Mr Thomson.

‘The standard is that no more than 30 per cent of your income should be devoted toward housing and we find that it is very, very difficult for students to meet that.’

With students spending less time on campus because of the time spent working and travelling, they can become less engaged with University life, explains Mr Thomson. ‘We’re finding that students will configure their classes to suit their work or commuting schedule, and sometimes they won’t be studying exactly what they want to study because it doesn’t fit around that,’ he says.

But the issue extends beyond that of access and affordability. In their award-winning 2009 report ‘Transnational and Temporary: students, community and place-making in central Melbourne’, the University of Melbourne’s Professor Ruth Fincher (BA (Hons) 1973) (Geography), Professor Paul Carter (DLitt 1997) (Urban Design), Associate Professor Paolo Tombesi (Architecture), Dr Kate Shaw (PhD 2005) (Architecture) and Andrew Martel (PhD Candidate in Architecture) framed the problem as a complex amalgam of access, poor architectural and urban design of many existing student housing facilities, flawed administrative practices and a lack of cogent policy directives at both a university and local governmental level. Put simply, it described a broken system, where international students are channelled into overpriced, privately owned student housing developments and their experiences of university and Melbourne life are increasingly isolated from their local counterparts.

‘The first problem is that there’s just not enough housing for students in the city,’ says Dr Kate Shaw, an ARC Research Fellow with the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning. ‘The second problem is that the provision of this particular kind of housing is such that most local students just don’t want to live in it. It’s too small, it’s too high-density and it’s too expensive; far more expensive than a room in a share house.’

As Dr Shaw goes on to explain, the majority of existing student apartment complexes effectively exacerbate the sense of separation international students already experience. ‘International students tend to be separated from local students in all sorts of subtle ways and funnelled into these discrete, often nationality-specific social circles, in terms of institutional practices of the universities and social organisations, and clubs and societies on campus.’

Dr Shaw’s team drew on the detailed architectural analysis of thirty-one student-housing buildings in central Melbourne housing approximately 10 000 students from the University of Melbourne and RMIT. The analysis found that the majority of the buildings were poorly designed, overly expensive and lacked communal space and other points for interaction. The report described the university sector’s administrative approach toward international students and housing as one based on efficiency rather than student experience. It seems a curious oversight, especially considering the sheer scope of education as an export industry. In 2008 alone, international students contributed $14.2 billion to the Australian economy via fees and onshore spending, making education our third-largest export behind coal and iron ore.

‘There’s an argument that the universities and the governments were in some way unprepared for this dramatic increase in international enrolments that we’ve seen over the last decade, which, if not implausible then is not really very forgivable,’ says Dr Shaw. ‘These quite serious recruitment campaigns for international students were obviously going to lead to a problem of housing.’

‘The private sector being what it is – being more nimble than the governments and universities at the time – stepped into the breach and provided all this very high-density, high-security, high-rise and high-cost student housing close to the universities,’ she continues. ‘The universities should have really anticipated this… There was an attitude that they were in the business of providing education, not housing.’

Mr Thomson agrees. Without clear governmental or university guidance, private developers have been able to work to models based on maximizing property yields as opposed to creating a positive environment. ‘The University has had a hands-off approach to housing for quite some time, which has allowed the market to determine both the style and the nature of the housing that’s available, particularly to international students,’ he says.

‘The design elements that have occurred might meet the basic expectations of a clean, safe and equipped environment, but they haven’t contributed to the social and cultural mixing that we would encourage.’

For Thomson, the whole notion of student housing requires a rethink. ‘We need to really consider just how substantial this business is, beyond the teaching and learning and research, and to what extent it supports a larger economy outside the University, both in accommodation and living expenses and in entertainment expenses – food, clothing, all those things.’

Students, he points out, have the potential to become advocates for the University.

‘If their experience is good enough, they will,’ he continues. ‘But a student who is frustrated, or having to commute for long distances, or isolated because their accommodation doesn’t meet their needs, is obviously not going to be in a position to enjoy or embrace what they’re doing here in the teaching environment. These things are all interconnected.’

Dr David O’Brien (BPD 1988, BArch (Hons) 1991, PhD 2006), a Senior Lecturer with the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, has worked on various low-cost modular housing and building projects in outback Indigenous communities, including 2010’s ‘media box’ project, which converted shipping containers into interactive study hubs in remote communities. He sees great potential for positive modular solutions in the student housing market and cites Melbourne architect Nonda Katsalidis (BArch 1975) and Unitised Building’s the Nicholson apartment complex in East Coburg as the leading local example of modular housing.

‘All of the modules are made and fitted out in a factory and then they’re trucked in and craned up and locked into place,’ he explains. ‘In a lot of ways they’re just fancy shipping containers. I think there’s a lot of value in that kind of development.’

Indeed, constructing apartment modules in a factory setting greatly increases the potential for customisation, which is exactly what student housing projects require.

‘Sure, it’s always going to be cheaper to build an apartment block where every floor is the same, but the reality is that if some of the apartments were three or four bedroom apartments and they were well designed, then they might actually become attractive to different types of groups,’ he continues. ‘Maybe it could be attractive to a family, or a share house arrangement. That way you’re not just going to have an apartment block only filled with students from, say, China or wherever.’

He puts an emphasis on the ‘peripheral space’ – the informal areas that adjoin the building and interface with public space. ‘People often only really think about the perimeter wall of the dwelling,’ offers Dr O’Brien. ‘They don’t think about how it fits into the community; they’re not building with that social network, that social connection in mind.’

He points to the Micasa 8 student housing building in Swanston Street – which has its laundromat in the foyer – as a simple, yet effective example of creating a collective space. ‘By putting something as, in some ways, mundane as a laundromat in that entranceway, you’re creating a space where there are very different kinds of interactions,’ he argues. ‘It’s a space for people to have those accidental interactions and for just bumping into people.’

James Luxton (BPD 1997, BArch 2001, BPC 2001) of locally based architecture and urban design practice Hayball, was the project architect for Micasa 8. For him, the project was about honing in on functional space as opposed to creating contrived common areas.

‘The laundry is a space which every student uses sometime during the week and therefore is a space that provides a real opportunity to interact with many other students,’ he says. ‘You can’t engineer that interaction, but you can only try and create a context for it.’

But the implementation of smart design and development can’t happen within a vacuum. As Mr Thomson puts it, ‘astute, far-thinking developers’ may be prepared to go down such a path, but a policy framework is needed to ensure it.

Indeed, from the Transnational and Temporary report’s list of recommendations – which included the provision of a suite of affordable housing alternatives built on public transport routes away from the CBD, and the implementation of various architectural and urban design requirements – the preparation and implementation of a clear student housing policy and framework was at the top.

While the Melbourne City Council has since implemented a student housing policy as an amendment to its Melbourne Planning Scheme on the strength of the report’s recommendations, the University of Melbourne response is yet to become clear.

This is not to suggest that programs have not been put in place. Aside from various housing support and rent subsidy programs, the University is in the midst of trialling a homestay pilot program for international students with the Australian Homestay Network. It’s a step in which Mr Thomson sees ‘enormous potential’.

‘Students who come here for the first time don’t necessarily know a thing about the city or a thing about the environment, but if homestay is properly configured and properly regulated, I think it can provide a really good experience for students who are unfamiliar with living in a different environment.’

Although positive, the program does not, however, address the root of the problem. According to Mr Thomson, this can only come from a coordinated, sustained and multifarious suite of solutions.

‘In my view, the solution doesn’t rest within one model,’ he says. “What we’ve done in the past is focus on opportunistic little things here and there and sort of snatched at them as a solution. But really, the solution is going to be a succession of different things: affordable housing complexes, blended housing complexes, private housing, college housing.’

‘What we’ve lacked is a long-term strategy,’ he says. ‘With a long-term strategy comes a long-term commitment.’

Did you know ...

Through the University’s Annual Appeal, alumni have helped provide grants to students with genuine financial need to help them pay the rent and focus on their studies.