Returning students face six-hour commutes or dropping out as housing crisis bites
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Returning college students have been contacting accommodation services and unions in a “state of panic” ahead of the academic year as they struggle to find somewhere to live in Cork.
In University College Cork (UCC), 3,900 first year students are expected to enter via the CAO this year. An additional 200 international students are anticipated to start full time, while approximately 700-800 visiting Erasmus students will arrive this autumn.
Yet, some students who are already enrolled have been left unable to find affordable accommodation in Cork city, and say they are facing options such as commuting over six hours a day or even taking a gap year.
According to UCC Students' Union Welfare Officer, Aoibhe O’Brien, as the academic year begins, students are starting to panic.
The students' union has been getting a large volume of queries about housing, with emails and messages on her phone and on social media from parents, international students and from sixth years coming in from secondary school.
Concerns about the cost of rooms in Cork city as well as the lack of available accommodation have been a major factor for those contacting the Union.
A spokesperson for UCC said that all on-campus housing is now “fully subscribed” but that students who applied to the lottery-based system may “still have the chance of securing campus accommodations as some students may cancel places after the CAO offers are released.”
The spokesperson also said UCC offers the “best rates for purpose-built student accommodation in the city.”
Ms O’Brien said: “Come August 30, when the CAO offers roll in, I would start blowing up every accommodation’s phone because people will start to drop out of it when they realise they are not going to UCC.”
However, with all six on-campus complexes currently booked out, the fallback option is private accommodation that can cost between €9,000 and €11,000 per year.
Theatre student Orlaith O’Byrne is going into the second year of her degree. She is considering taking a gap year and moving back home to Limerick if she does not find any room to live in before her summer lease in Cork is up on August 29.
“I’m very stressed at the moment,” she says.
Ms O’Byrne rented privately during her first year and has used up all her college savings to pay for the room.
This year, the 20-year-old is not in a position to do the same and is “desperately” trying to find somewhere to live before she goes into her second year of a theatre degree.
“We just need a plain basic room with a bed and a desk, somewhere that is affordable."
“With private accommodation you’re not only paying for the room, but you’re also paying for the gym, the yoga studio, the gaming room with the PS5 and all these amenities that you would never really use.”
Ms O’Byrne fears that if she is not able to find a room before she has to move out, then she will have to take a gap year.
“I’m going to have to do it because commuting is just not an option for me. And if I cannot live here, then I cannot go to college here.”
She was unable to get on-campus housing due to the lottery system and is now desperately trying to find a room to move into. The first offers for on-campus housing are issued soon after the CAO application window closes, usually after March 16.
Meanwhile, Taylor O’Leary, who is starting a Masters in UCC this year, says she has been left with no other option but to commute six hours a day to get to and from her current home in Waterford city to the UCC campus.
“I’ll have to wake up at around 4 am to get the bus at five to be in campus for eight in the morning."
She won’t be home until 9pm every day.
The 21-year-old, who is originally from Wexford, says she would love to move to Cork but it is “really difficult” to find anything reasonable in the city.
“I thought Waterford was hard enough to find accommodation that was not overcrowded or that was quite reasonable. And then trying to move to Cork and realizing that there is absolutely nothing to live in, even if it was with someone’s family or granny.”
She can't afford private student accommodation in the city and when she was looking for rooms online, they were not even “remotely reasonable.” When she looked online, rooms were going for €900 per month, and that student accommodation centres were asking for a €3,000 deposit just for electricity.
The Department for Further and Higher Education (DFHE) is encouraging homeowners to apply to host students as part of digs-style accommodation, seven days a week.
“Digs are an important part of the response to student accommodation demand,” a DFHE spokesperson said, “A homeowner can earn up to €14,000 without it affecting their tax, or welfare payments.”
“Government has agreed to extend the rent a room income disregard for medical card eligibility and also when examining reckonable income for support under the Student Grant Scheme.
“The scheme will soon be extended to local authorities,” the spokesperson added.
Law student Brian O’Kane found one offer of digs whose owner was asking for €500 a month, but which came with uncertain living conditions.
“I was told that I would be living with the child of the owner and that they could return to the house at any time they wanted – usually during the weekends where I’d be working and they’d expect me to go home during any random period, and the rules are quite invasive as well," he says.
“I could never have any guests upstairs ever and if I had occasional visitors, it would be to one room only.”
Today, Mr O’Kane, who starting a master's in law in September, remains without a home in Cork city. Three minutes before an appointment he had to meet a landlord last week, the 22-year-old was again turned down.
“I’m looking at all the websites that are online, and I’ve been applying to at least three listings a day. And I’m basically getting no response," he says.
“It’s like they are being put up kind of for show or they’ve already picked someone.
Mr O’Kane is desperate for anything even if it is a “mouldy, crowded house.”
“Come Saturday I’ll be begging all my Facebook friends to send me anything they might have, I’ll be taking my holidays and will be contacting the UCC accommodation service saying, ‘It is an emergency’,” he shrugs.
UCC Students' Union's Aoibhe O’Brien says there is support in place at the university and that students should get in contact with the students' union or the accommodation services there if they are in need of assistance.
In a statement, the Department for Further and Higher Education said 938 beds will be made available in publicly funded institutions while 2,057 privately funded beds have been completed and are set to be made available to students this autumn.
A spokesperson for the department said to date the “Government has approved a total of up to €61m in capital and current funding to unlock the development of over 1,000 beds across four universities, with delivery beginning in 2024.”