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Rent, Study, Move, Repeat: Where and how do students live in Montreal?


Date & time
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Cost

This event is free

Contact

Susan Edey
514-848-2424 ext. 4893

Where

Le Caravane Café
3506 Lacombe Ave.

Home to over 200,000 post-secondary students, Montreal is internationally known as a destination for potential university and college applicants. Studies have shown that students can be a major social, economic and political force; however, their impacts on the neighborhoods in which they live are often overlooked. Beyond attracting certain types of businesses to the areas they inhabit, students also often pay higher rents for worse living conditions. Why does this happen and what are the implications? This public conversation will examine some of the dynamics of the recently dubbed 'studentification' phenomenon.

Together, we will explore what conditions we expect for student housing and why. What factors influence where students live? What are the advantages and disadvantages of high density student neighborhoods as opposed to more geographically dispersed alternatives? What can be done to ease the power imbalance between landlords and their student tenants? Beyond the students themselves, why are these issues important to the broader community?

Guests

Kyle McLoughlin is a community organizer who has worked with student tenants at a campus based legal information clinic for the past two years. Originally from the United States he has lived and witnessed both the successes and frustrating failures of housing in Montreal. His interests are in empowering tenants to better advocate for themselves and in creating working models for future living situations.

An urban planning student with a degree in economics, Mathilde Rudloff currently works for UTILE, a non-profit organisation dedicated to cultivating more student housing co-ops in Québec. She is conducting research about the impact of students on the real estate market, with a focus on the competition between students and families for large accommodations. Her primary concern is how to make Montreal an attractive city to live in while maintaining its affordability.

Moderator

Anurag Dhir is the Community Engagement Coordinator for the Social Equity & Diversity Education Office at McGill University. His work involves developing programming for community-based learning and engagement as launching points for transformational leadership, social change and personal inquiry. Anurag is currently completing an M.A. in Education and Society in the Department for Integrated Studies in Education at McGill University.

Organized in Collaboration with HOJO and UTILE.


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