THUNDER BAY - With borders closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, international students must remain in Canada and one housing service is keeping its doors open, but needs help.
Haven Hostel opened its doors to international students this year and there are currently 14 living in the communal space.
However, with the outbreak of COVID-19, those students were not able to return home and Holly Watson, co-founder and CEO of Haven Hostel, said they were happy to allow the students to stay a little while longer.
“Our tentative plan for the students is May and June outside of their term,” Watson said. “We will keep them for as long as we can if they need a place to stay.”
“Students were with us for an eight-month term and now we are taking it month to month. We are also sourcing out funding for any that have funding issues with another month of booking or two months.”
A Go Fund Me page has been set up to collect donations for a residential rental fund, a food stipend, and household supplies. So far it has raised $800 of its $5,000 goal.
“It will help with household supplies, staple foods, if we go above and beyond we are able to fundraise, it will be donated to Confederation College and Lakehead University emergency fund.”
Watson added that when things do return to normal and tourism begins to pick up, they will be assisting the students with finding accommodation through rental services and Confederation College and Lakehead University.
“I sense a little bit of nervousness from the students,” Watson said. “We are in a position to be able to house them for a longer time so we agreed to that and we are working on a month to month basis.”
Eijro Mowarin, a first-year mechanical engineering student who is living at Haven Hostel, said transitioning to online learning has been very challenging, and so has the stress of wondering if he’ll have somewhere to live.
“Most people lost their job,” he said. “Like me I lost my job and even going to look for houses is kind of risky because you don’t know who was in those houses before.”
“I’ll be here for the next two months. It depends though. We don’t know what’s going to happen. Our lease was supposed to end this month but now it’s going to be extended. By June or July this situation could be much better.”
The students living at Haven Hostel have been busy studying for final exams, but at least knowing they have somewhere to stay for the next two months is a welcomed relief.
“The fact that we’ve been given an extra one or two months, I was really tense looking for houses, because I don’t know who lived in those houses before,” Mowarin said. “So this is kind of like made me to feel more relaxed about the housing situation.”
