Edmonton university students back to school under rental housing crunch
Students facing asking rent for new listings rising faster than any of Canada's other major cities
Wilfrid Youbi Fansi is upping his housing budget by a third as he prepares for the first day of university classes.
When he first moved from Fort McMurray to Edmonton in 2021 to study at MacEwan University, he paid $500 a month to rent a room. He later moved to a new place, paying $600 a month, but this September, he's making the jump to a room in a home with shared common spaces for $800 per month.
He said he usually works three jobs during the school year to keep himself out of student debt and cover living expenses and tuition as he earns his bachelor of commerce. But trying to keep his rent as low as possible on a student budget has gotten increasingly difficult.
"If you are in that budget range, anywhere from the $500 to $600 range, you start to see where … the quality of the place isn't up to standard or they don't maintain repairs, or a lot of the time there are illegal basement suites," he said.
"It's very rough for [students] to try and navigate and find something that's affordable but also livable."
Post-secondary students starting a new semester across Edmonton this week are facing a rental market under pressure.
The city's vacancy rate for purpose-built rental apartments dropped to 2.4 per cent in 2023 — the lowest level in almost a decade, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., and a notable drop from the 4.3 per cent vacancy rate in 2022.
Data from Rentals.ca shows rental costs in Edmonton haven't stopped increasing. In fact, the asking price of rent on new listings has been rising faster than any of Canada's other major cities. The most recent numbers show the average cost of rent up 14 per cent this July, compared to the same time last year.
"The previous year, Calgary always was the leader. That switched in 2024 with Edmonton overtaking it and then sustaining that for months now," said Rentals.ca communications manager Giacomo Ladas.
"A vacancy rate of around two per cent is really unhealthy. We need a lot more supply coming to the market."
Rising living costs
Rentals.ca puts the average asking cost of a one-bedroom apartment in Edmonton at $1,424 per month. That still ranks among the cheapest monthly rates across 25 cities the platform tracks, with average rental costs for a one-bedroom unit in Toronto or Vancouver running more than $1,000 higher.
But Edmonton students are feeling the squeeze of an increasingly competitive housing market. When the University of Alberta Campus Food Bank surveyed 275 of their clients in the spring, a rent increase was the most frequently cited reason for why they were using the food bank.
"If there is a really small vacancy rate, landlords have other options that they can get other renters for a higher price. So that's affecting students," said Abdul Abbasi, vice-president external at the University of Alberta Students' Union.
He said with particularly intense housing demand in neighbourhoods around school campuses, there's a need for more purpose-built rental buildings, especially with multi-bedroom units. He's also advocating for a dedicated student housing strategy with more action to boost supply.
"The U of A plans to increase their population. The city plans to increase their population. If we don't address this, it's going to keep becoming a bigger issue."
Post-secondary schools in Edmonton are increasingly suggesting the online platform Elev as a resource to help students find housing. Created by three U of A grads, it's a place for rental listings and roommate connections, as well as a service to help connect students and landlords.
COO Jean Bruce Koua said he and his co-founders are also trying to be a resource for international students who might be apartment-hunting from overseas, and navigating the process of signing a lease and setting up payments to a landlord for the first time.
"Making sure that students don't find themselves in a situation where [they're] being taken advantage of is something that we're constantly working on," Koua said.
"When I came here, I spent a couple of nights at a hotel because I was still looking for a place to stay. And even when I found one, there was the culture shock that was still there … I had to figure all of that out on my own."
Elev launched the full scope of its current services last summer, and Koua said there are now about 3,000 users on the platform, and they're working with more schools and landlords.
He also sees a growing need for student-focused housing services, and he said students using the platform are asking for a better selection of affordable options.
Residence space also tight
On-campus residence spots at the University of Alberta and MacEwan are in high demand too.
MacEwan's downtown residence had a waitlist for the first time last summer, and its 860 beds are now only for MacEwan students — guest suites in the building have been turned into student spaces to make more room. A MacEwan spokesperson said the school still expects to be able to accommodate the seven people on the residence waitlist as of mid-July.
A U of A spokesperson said residence occupancy is projected to be about 80 per cent across all university-owned housing, with more than 5,000 spaces spread across more than a dozen buildings.
Across the board, U of A residence fees have increased nearly 22 per cent since the fall term of 2020.
It now costs $955 per month to live in a shared room with a roommate in Lister, the school's main undergraduate residence hall — that's without a meal plan, but the rate includes utilities, internet and tenant insurance.
NAIT and NorQuest College, both in central Edmonton, don't have their own residence buildings.
NAIT's housing resource page warns prospective students that despite more students expressing interest in returning to in-person classes, the availability of affordable housing is down, and students should start looking for a place to stay as soon as they know they're accepted.
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