Priest, neighbours issue plea for help for struggling international students in Cape Breton
It’s not everyday you see a plea from a Catholic priest in the local paper asking people to take in homeless university students.
"Recently, I learned that some of these students are sleeping in cars while they look for a place to live. That is simply not acceptable," writes Reverend Dr. Albert Maroun.
"As Cape Bretoners, we know that something must be done to ensure it stops."
Father Maroun knows the needs of international students at Cape Breton University well, because he meets them during lunch. Hundreds depend on the local community kitchen, Loaves and Fishes, for food.
It’s a community-run kitchen, primarily funded by churches around Cape Breton. The facility was overwhelmed when the university recruited thousands of newcomers in just a few years. They offer up to 250 free meals a day, the majority of them go to foreign students.
Cape Breton University has aggressively ramped up enrollment in the past five years for international students, most of whom are from India.
That’s because students from abroad often pay double what most Canadians do, which has been a saving grace for university budgets across the country.
Today, CBU has 7,300 students on campus, more than 70 per cent of them are international. That’s the highest percentage of international students from the 30 public universities W5 surveyed across the country (see chart below).
CBU students board a bus in Sydney, Nova Scotia (W5)
In his letter to the editor, Maroun alleges that the university wants to make money but doesn’t take responsibility for these students.
"When the steel plant was setting up here over a century ago, they built housing first… maybe CBU should look to the past to see how it is done right."
NEWCOMERS STRUGGLING
W5 spoke with dozens of international students, both on the phone and on the ground in Cape Breton.
Many are frustrated by the lack of affordable housing, buses that don’t have enough room for students to get to school, and the challenges of finding part time jobs. But most students were too scared to speak on camera out of fear they would be penalized by the school.
"I wanted to grab the landing gear and fly back," one student tells us, when we agreed to hide her identity. "My mind just shut down for about a week after I landed here. It’s so desolate and there's nothing here."
This student had studied abroad before, where a transition team at her first university had helped her find accommodations. CBU currently has apartment listings in the community on its website and a dedicated off campus housing coordinator, but this student claims, she was not told anything like that existed and it was difficult to find a place when she arrived.
"I often wake up at midnight, 3 a.m, 4 a.m… I just know my hair is turning grey," she says about the pressure to succeed in Canada.
Before the influx of students, Cape Breton was already facing a severe affordable housing shortage. While there are dorms available on campus, there are no kitchens, so students can’t cook and must purchase a meal plan costing roughly $3,000 a semester.
Damanpreet Singh is CBU’s Student Union President and also an international student who came to Canada in 2021.
"They should have built kitchens so students could cook, but they didn’t," he said. "They don’t want students cooking in their rooms."
He says most students can’t afford to live on campus because many have already taken out personal loans and it’s much cheaper to live in the community. But he also thinks students need to do more research about housing and jobs before coming to Cape Breton.
Another student, who asked to remain anonymous, says he has poured his life savings into this degree, but has struggled to find a place to live. His first rental had rusted out sinks and bathtubs, and mice running around.
"It’s the most disgusting place I’ve ever been," he says. He temporarily moved in with a friend. He says he has lost 20 pounds from all the stress and hasn’t video-called his family since arriving in Canada in early 2023. "I'm really afraid to Facetime my family because I don’t want them to figure out how terrible I'm looking," he said.
International students share pictures of some of the housing conditions in Sydney, N.S. (W5)
He also shows us the snow-filled, isolated road he was waiting on to take a bus to school.
"I was waiting for the bus for one hour," he tells us. "All my shoes, my socks, my pants were all damp."
Others tell us, at the beginning of the semester, there weren’t enough seats when the bus arrived. Many said they missed classes because of those delays. In response, CBU has purchased two city buses and added shuttles to help students get to class. But those buses continue to be crowded.
The university largely touts its growth as a success, though it acknowledges there are some growing pains. David Dingwall, the president of CBU, says the university plans to add 240 more beds on campus and is working with the private sector to generate more options in the community.
"But let's not kid ourselves, housing in every community across the country has grave difficulties and we're no exception," Dingwall says.
In 2019, CBU purchased land to develop affordable housing in the community, but no ground has been broken yet. It’s also expanding the dorms to accommodate families coming from abroad and capped certain programs for enrollment.
Here's a list of improvements made by CBU:
- CBU Continues to Take Action on Housing
- Open Letter to the Cape Breton Community
- Forever CBU Campaign
- CBU Newsroom: Cape Breton University Will Do More
'CANADIAN MAMA' HELPING STUDENTS
Community members are coming to the aid of students. Brenda Matheson from Sydney is one of them. Last year, she started noticing international students, mostly from India, everywhere.
"My community has become the nicest shade of brown," she laughs.
The 61-year-old grandmother is as Cape Breton as they come. You can hear her beautiful laugh and accent a mile away.
That warmth is what drew an international student to her doorstep, begging for a place to live. She says she couldn’t turn him away in the cold. A year later, he still lives with her, rent-free, with another student planning to move in April. From these newcomers, she started to see what was really going on in her community.
"Kids are sleeping in cars. Kids are sleeping on floors, in people's living rooms, kids are sleeping in laundromats," she claims. She says she’s ashamed that so many students pay tens of thousands of dollars to come to Canada to live like this.
Her home has since become a hub for struggling students. Many of her neighbours are also now housing foreign students because of the influx.
"I think that if you are going to invite thousands of people to any community anywhere on the planet, that maybe you would have lodgings for them, maybe there would be accommodations available, maybe there would be a job for them," Brenda says.
"These kids aren't kids. They're a commodity. They're a cash figure. They're a bottom line."
Can't see the chart of international students by university below? Click here
Watch the documentary 'Cash Cows' in the video player at the top of this article, or on our official YouTube channel.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
DEVELOPING Man sets self on fire outside New York court where Trump trial underway
A man set himself on fire on Friday outside the New York courthouse where Donald Trump's historic hush-money trial was taking place as jury selection wrapped up, but officials said he did not appear to have been targeting Trump.
BREAKING Sask. father found guilty of withholding daughter to prevent her from getting COVID-19 vaccine
Michael Gordon Jackson, a Saskatchewan man accused of abducting his daughter to prevent her from getting a COVID-19 vaccine, has been found guilty for contravention of a custody order.
She set out to find a husband in a year. Then she matched with a guy on a dating app on the other side of the world
Scottish comedian Samantha Hannah was working on a comedy show about finding a husband when Toby Hunter came into her life. What happened next surprised them both.
Mandisa, Grammy award-winning 'American Idol' alum, dead at 47
Soulful gospel artist Mandisa, a Grammy-winning singer who got her start as a contestant on 'American Idol' in 2006, has died, according to a statement on her verified social media. She was 47.
'It could be catastrophic': Woman says natural supplement contained hidden painkiller drug
A Manitoba woman thought she found a miracle natural supplement, but said a hidden ingredient wreaked havoc on her health.
Young people 'tortured' if stolen vehicle operations fail, Montreal police tell MPs
One day after a Montreal police officer fired gunshots at a suspect in a stolen vehicle, senior officers were telling parliamentarians that organized crime groups are recruiting people as young as 15 in the city to steal cars so that they can be shipped overseas.
The Body Shop Canada explores sale as demand outpaces inventory: court filing
The Body Shop Canada is exploring a sale as it struggles to get its hands on enough inventory to keep up with "robust" sales after announcing it would file for creditor protection and close 33 stores.
Vicious attack on a dog ends with charges for northern Ont. suspect
Police in Sault Ste. Marie charged a 22-year-old man with animal cruelty following an attack on a dog Thursday morning.
On federal budget, Macklem says 'fiscal track has not changed significantly'
Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem says Canada's fiscal position has 'not changed significantly' following the release of the federal government's budget.
Local Spotlight
UBC football star turning heads in lead up to NFL draft
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Cat found at Pearson airport 3 days after going missing
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly on a mission: N.S. student collecting books about women in sport for school library
Molly Knight, a grade four student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Where did the gold go? Crime expert weighs in on unfolding Pearson airport heist investigation
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.
Marmot in the city: New resident of North Vancouver's Lower Lonsdale a 'rock star rodent'
When Les Robertson was walking home from the gym in North Vancouver's Lower Lonsdale neighbourhood three weeks ago, he did a double take. Standing near a burrow it had dug in a vacant lot near East 1st Street and St. Georges Avenue was a yellow-bellied marmot.
Relocated seal returns to Greater Victoria after 'astonishing' 204-kilometre trek
A moulting seal who was relocated after drawing daily crowds of onlookers in Greater Victoria has made a surprise return, after what officials described as an 'astonishing' six-day journey.
Ottawa barber shop steps away from Parliament Hill marks 100 years in business
Just steps from Parliament Hill is a barber shop that for the last 100 years has catered to everyone from prime ministers to tourists.
'It was a special game': Edmonton pinball player celebrates high score and shout out from game designer
A high score on a Foo Fighters pinball machine has Edmonton player Dave Formenti on a high.
'How much time do we have?': 'Contamination' in Prairie groundwater identified
A compound used to treat sour gas that's been linked to fertility issues in cattle has been found throughout groundwater in the Prairies, according to a new study.