Turbocharging homestays could be a key solution in addressing the need to accommodate international students, according to a new article from VU Vice-Chancellor Professor Adam Shoemaker.
AHURI data indicates that while Australian homes have a total of almost 13 million bedrooms, around a third are empty. At a time of mortgage stress for families and isolation of many older people wishing to remain in their homes, the opportunity to grow accommodation provision for international students is immediately available – on the nation’s doorsteps.
Drawing on his own experience coming to Australia as an international student 40 years ago, Professor Shoemaker says the relationships forged through shared accommodation were crucial to finding his feet in his adopted nation.
“Many retirees not in aged care live in homes with two, three or even four bedrooms. Over half of them are in mortgage stress,” Professor Shoemaker writes.
“Why not solve two problems at once by providing incentives to liberate those unused bedrooms for a massive student (and global student) Homestay program. Instead of creating more ‘purpose-built’ student accommodation two years from now.”
A strategic and deliberate approach to expanding homestay across the nation would help both students and older Australians who wished to take them in.
“To those who say ‘twenty-year-olds do not want to live with 65-year-olds’ I say: the world cannot continue to squander this opportunity. It might be exactly what both parties would love to do,” Professor Shoemaker writes.
“To those who say, ‘what about the safety of both parties?’ I say—agreed. And Australia has already run exactly these sorts of Homestay programs for high-school age students—from Japan, from Korea, from North America—for more than 45 years.”
The plan is ingenious, but does not solve the Government’s problem – posturing as tough on immigration, with both major parties scrambling to proclaim their crusades in reducing immigration intakes and the Greens joining the chorus, arguing against a big Australia.
“Everyone seems to be looking for a scapegoat rather than a genuine humanitarian solution which will work,” Professor Shoemaker writes.
“International student numbers are now being blamed for the problem, despite only accounting for 4% of renters in Australia according to a report by Accenture.
“Just two years ago, in the height of the pandemic, it was those same students who were working the toughest and most essential service jobs in our community.
“It is shameful to target global students—who themselves are often not rich and who saved for years to study in a dream-destination like Australia—for our own domestic policy failings.
“There is more housing pressure caused by the number of dwellings which are being land-banked and sitting idle, owned by speculators.”
