Fourth-year UBC student fails to win housing lottery, graduation pushed back a year

Raymond Hubscher, who is studying biomedical engineering, was told first-year students get priority for on-campus housing

Published Sep 04, 2024  •  Last updated 0 minutes ago  •  4 minute read

Fourth-year UBC bio-medical engineering student, Raymond Hubscher. Photo by Doug Hubscher /sun

Raymond Hubscher was hoping to graduate from the University of B.C. with a degree in biomedical engineering in 2026, but it looks like that dream has been pushed back by at least a year.

After obtaining on-campus housing his first three years at the school, Hubscher was left on the outside this year, and is back living with family in Canoe, a Salmon Arm community, because he couldn’t afford the rents in Metro Vancouver anywhere near the Point Grey campus.

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For his first three years at UBC, he began the process of applying for student housing the previous December, was placed on a waiting list and was informed of his housing in mid-August.

“They gave me a wait-list number (this year), L-513, and I just never received a room offer from them,” Hubscher said. “I contacted them, trying to figure out what was going on, and they told me they have no rooms available, that I have to wait for 513 students to give up their rooms.

“They also told me first-year students have priority, they’re housed first, and then the remaining rooms allotted for upper-year students are assigned at random.

“I wasn’t randomly selected, I don’t get a room with student housing.”

He searched for private rental housing within a reasonable commuting distance to UBC and was disappointed but not shocked that anything nearby began at $2,000 a month and up.

“It’s crazy,” he said. “The highest I saw was $3,000 a month.”

In student residence, his total cost — for housing, tuition, groceries and sundry — was $20,000 a year, or less than $1,700 a month.

A UBC spokesman said the university encourages students to apply for year-round housing in their first year.

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“We are sorry to hear of this and would strongly encourage the student to reach out directly to Student Housing,” Matt Ramsey said. “The situation may have a resolution as the waiting lists can rapidly change at the start of the academic term.

“While it’s inevitable that some people on the waiting list may not have immediate access, for a variety of reasons some students choose not to attend UBC after all so it’s not unusual for spots in residence to open up through September.”

Fourth-year UBC bio-medical engineering student Raymond Hubscher says he has had to delay his studies because of the challenge of finding housing he can afford. Photo by Doug Hubscher /Submitted

UBC also has bursaries and financial supports available for students who need help with this kind of issue, Ramsey said.

“The student in this case should reach out to an enrolment services adviser, explain the situation, and see what supports may be accessible so he can continue his studies.”

The university has spent more than $700 million since 2010 to build 6,080 new resident beds for students in Vancouver and the Okanagan, and is the largest university-run student housing provider in Canada with 16,003 beds (13,883 in Vancouver, 2,120 in the Okanagan), with a plan to build another 4,800 beds over the next 10 to 15 years, he added.

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Also, UBC and the provincial government have partnered on a $560 million new housing project announced on Aug. 20.

This is all well and good, Hubscher said, but doesn’t help people such as himself in the here and now.

In 2021 he transferred to UBC from the Salmon Arm campus of Okanagan College, and was housed in a six-room Walter Gage Housing unit, sharing it with another student from B.C. and four from overseas.

His sophomore year he had his own Walter Gage one-bedroom apartment, and last year had a one-bedroom apartment at Fairview Crescent.

Not being a lottery winner for student housing this year, the closest rental he said he found that he could afford was in Maple Ridge, an hour-and-15-minute, one-way drive away when it’s not rush hour.

He doesn’t think it’s fair he or any other returning student should find themselves in this situation.

“I believe they’re using randomization to be fair to all students,” Hubscher said. “However, this creates a situation where a student who can afford off-campus housing, or who even lives in Vancouver within commuting distance of the university, they get a room but someone like myself who is not from the area and cannot afford off-campus housing doesn’t get offered (student housing).

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“I firmly believe that those who actually need the room should be offered the rooms first.”

His job with the R.J. Haney Heritage Village and Museum in Salmon Arm, where he works in the service and maintenance department, expires at the end of the month.

He’s taking a couple of online courses that will help him with his biomedical engineering studies at UBC, but since they’re offered privately he wasn’t able to obtain a student loan to pay for them.

Hubscher is 36.

“I waited a long time to go to university,” he said. “I guess now I have to wait an extra year to graduate.”

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