Call for crackdown on rogue landlords of overseas students

May 31, 2008

INTERNATIONAL students are being placed at risk in the university housing market, with rogue landlords overstacking rooms or demanding sexual favours in return for accommodation.

A Monash and Melbourne University study has painted a grim picture of international student housing, with experts calling for a nationwide crackdown on operators and institutions that place profit ahead of social responsibility. 

The report recommends prosecuting universities that, for financial reasons, understate the difficulties of obtaining affordable housing to students. It also urges governments to boost the availability of affordable housing, and for councils to be given greater powers to clamp down on unprincipled landlords.

Monash university researcher Chris Nyland cited cases in which landlords had filled tiny rooms with multiple students in a bid to maximise their return, or in some of the worst scenarios, had asked for sexual favours from vulnerable students in addition to rent and accommodation.

"Australia is in the midst of a housing crisis that is having a very negative impact on the safety and welfare of international students," Professor Nyland writes in his report, obtained by The Age.

"Education suppliers, recruitment agencies and government regulators need to engage with the international education market in a manner that is socially responsible even as they strive to profit, (and) regulations that limit the capacity of landlords to endanger the lives and wellbeing of international students require urgent review."

The report was based on interviews with 200 international students from nine Australian universities. It also found:

■ The price of living in university housing increased by 37% between 2002 and 2006.

■ Accommodation built through public-private partnerships is even more costly to students but the conditions can often be worse.

■ Some institutions were taking "kickbacks" in return for getting students to stay in particular accommodation, as well as bonuses for high occupancy rates.

■ That a proportion of the profits for university accommodation should be redirected into housing support services for international students.

The report follows the death of three Indian students who were sharing an overcrowded room when they died in a house fire in Footscray in January. It also comes a month after Moreland City Council raided a property in Coburg that was housing up to 48 Nepalese students in "filthy conditions".

Tenants Union of Victoria chief executive Mark O'Brien said the Coburg property was certainly not an isolated case, but the union found it hard to convince international students to speak openly because of fears they will be thrown out of the property and have nowhere to go.

One Chinese student studying at Swinburne University, who did not want to be named, told The Age she had lived in the living room of a two-bedroom city apartment for six months, which housed five other people.

The student paid almost $500 a month in rent and bills for the accommodation, which she found through a Mandarin-language website set up exclusively for international students studying in Australia.