First years left scattered by fourth consecutive accommodation crisis
The University of York is facing its fourth consecutive housing crisis, as a number of first year students have been forced into off-campus accommodation or into shared rooms.
The crisis, an echo of those that have marred the start of the Autumn term for the past three years, has seen students whose accommodation forms were not received by the University until after the application deadline without rooms assigned.
An unknown number of students are now being housed in shared rooms, and the University has been forced to rent off-campus houses and sub-let to students. Rooms have been adapted for sharing and the University has rented houses near to campus, providing a further 22 rooms for students.
University officials have attributed the rooms’ shortage to the rising number of students applying and being accepted to York this year.
“We have been faced with a particularly high level of applications for places,” said University Press Officer David Garner. “It became evident at the end of September that a significant number of students had not been allocated accommodation and the number of rooms still available was limited.”
Pro-Vice Chancellor for Students Jane Grenville said: “We have more unconditional spaces than beds,” she said. “The number of students changes every year; it is dependent on completely unpredictable factors.”
First year students have remained dissatisfied, and online student discussion forums have acted as an outlet for frustration.
Writing on Thestudentroom.com under the alias ‘this.river.is.wild’, one first year said: “Anyone else feel like the whole accommodation allocation system has been a fiasco? I just can’t understand why the system is so crap when it seems to be a recurring problem each year! Surely they could learn from previous years to make the system more efficient?”
Incoming first years have also complained that they received confirmation of accommodation only days before arriving in York. Work in the Accommodation Office was further delayed by the volume of calls from received from anxious parents and students.
YUSU Society and Communications Officer Rory Shanks said: “as far as we know, the main problem that the Accommodation Office is facing is that some of the offer letters have been slow to get out. It seems that the result of this is that because the letters haven’t gone out, loads of people have been ringing up, which in turn has been slowing the Accommodation Office down.”
Derwent Chair Oliver Lester said: “the office got so bad that our college administrator had to volunteer to help out, as did I last week.”
The University responded to try and reassure students and their families. Grenville said: “it has been an abnormal year,” she said. “We are well aware of how difficult it is to be a fresher and not know where you are living. It is, however, exceptional at York for this to occur. Every single undergraduate student who got their form in on time will have a bed. People who didn’t get their forms in on time will be provided with temporary accommodation.
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