In just a few months, the fall semester will begin for Calgary’s post-secondary institutions, and with it, thousands of students looking to find their place in the world.

For many, that will be a far more literal demand, as the pressure to find student housing could mean the difference between attending university or not.

Bow Valley College (BVC) students could doubly feel that pressure, as that institution doesn’t have traditional dorm housing for its downtown campus.

On June 24, BVC announced a partnership with Canadian technology company SpacesShared, which provides a platform to connect homeowners looking to rent a spare room with prospective students.

“We have hundreds of incoming students who struggle to find a place to live, and we are helping them manage his challenge every day, but we have only so many tools in our toolbox,” said Heather McDonald, manager of student success and engagement at Bow Valley College.

“For our students, Calgary’s rental vacancy rates dropped to the near decade low last fall, and rental costs continue to increase.”

McDonald said that the college partnered with SpacesShared because it offers a safe and affordable way for students to find housing, and is among several different ways that BVC is trying to meet the needs of students.

SpacesShared works by connecting older homeowners with an extra room to share and the desire to assist students by connecting them with the right student for their living situation, said the firm’s CEO Rylan Kinnon.

“It’s an issue that we try to address on a community-by-community basis from Newfoundland to Vancouver, from Northern Ontario or northern Saskatchewan, to Southern Ontario,” he said.

“We do a lot of work to match you with someone who makes sense for you that shares hobbies, interests, program of study career, similar expectations around cleanliness, substance consumption in the home, and foods that are cooked and not to be cooked. But the reality is when you live with someone, it can be challenging.”

Kinnon said that the opportunity is to unlock underused rooms in homes across the country.

“When we talk about the housing crisis, we focus on units. If we only focus on units, then the doom and gloom about trying to solve this, it’s going to be really challenging. If we think, how do we unlock spare bedrooms as one of the ways that we’re going to put people in safe affordable places, that’s one of the ways we can get there,” he said.

Affordable room rentals

The benefit for students, said Kinnon, was that the rents for a room are typically well below the average rental rates for housing. In Ontario, he said, rental rates for rooms range from between $475 to less than $800 per month.

“Above $800, we don’t see listings get filled,” he said.

“Affordability at the absolute highest end from my perspective is about $800. We really like to see prices around $500 to $600 ideally, because that’s really improving the affordability for students.”

That cost also includes the potential of an up to 25 per cent reduction in rents, where students would receive 5 per cent off for every hour of help they are willing to give around the house, up to five hours. It’s called a helpers discount.

“It is a set list of tasks none of which are care tasks and in exchange for every hour of weekly assistance they’re willing to provide,” Kinnon said.

Safety was also a top concern for the firm, and for homeowners and students, Kinnon said. To that end, they include automatic enhanced criminal record checks for everyone participating on the platform who signs an agreement to share a space.

“If someone doesn’t feel safe in this relationship, they’re not going to participate. We do not share personal information or sell personal information. The data stored in Canada, and every user is verified,” he said.

“We like to say that you get one opportunity to be unkind or unpleasant on SpacesShared and then we remove you. This is not Facebook or Kijiji. You can’t just create another email address and start all over. We know your name, your date of birth. If you’re poorly behaved we will remove you from the platform.”

Lynn Connell, Vice President, Learner Experience at Bow Valley College, wasn’t able to provide a specific figure about how many students would be potentially helped by the partnership.

“As a new initiative, I think that we’re excited to provide the opportunity and we will see how it unfolds. As we look at our student population that is continuing to grow, we currently have over 15,000 learners enrolled at Bow Valley College, and this has the potential to be popular,” she said.

The college will be hosting a Stampede pancake breakfast on July 11 for individuals interested in potentially hosting students to learn more about the SpacesShared platform and to meet some of the Bow Valley College students who could soon be renting a spare room in their homes.

For more information, see www.spacesshared.ca.