{"id":248939,"date":"2025-12-24T08:00:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T08:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/248939\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T08:00:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T08:00:10","slug":"international-student-faces-housing-crunch-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/248939\/","title":{"rendered":"international student faces housing crunch \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cHonestly, I consider myself one of the lucky ones because my flatmates are really good, everyone\u2019s clean,\u201d says Dublin City University<\/a> student Piyush Rajendra Jain.<\/p>\n

He pays \u20ac650 per month in rent<\/a>, and his apartment, which he shares with two others in Dublin 9<\/a>, including his landlord, is conveniently located for getting to work and college.<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old, originally from Mumbai, India<\/a>, notes that he can get his groceries downstairs, and there is an Indian food store nearby.<\/p>\n

These factors, alongside the \u20ac650 rent, \u201coutweigh\u201d the one negative, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sharing my room with one person, in the same bed, which can be a nuisance at times.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did not want to share my bed with someone else, but it\u2019s in a gated community, so it gives me a sense of comfort, and it\u2019s 20 minutes from my workplace as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many plus points \u2013 this negative I can handle, and I knew the person I would be moving in with because he\u2019s one of my classmates,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\"PiyushPiyush Jain said that while sharing his bed can be challenging at times, he and his roommate sometimes work different hours, meaning they do not share it every night. Photograph: Chris Maddaloni <\/p>\n

Having moved to Ireland in January to pursue a master\u2019s degree in business management, he initially lived in student accommodation<\/a>, having begun the search \u201cway in advance\u201d after hearing about the reality of the housing crisis<\/a> in Ireland from those who went before him.<\/p>\n

He lasted in that apartment until May, he says, describing it as \u201cterrible\u201d. Due to a low energy rating, electricity and heating costs were unmanageable and the apartment was \u201ccramped\u201d and \u201cmouldy\u201d.<\/p>\n

Jain says he was \u201cshocked\u201d by the cost of rent in Ireland, describing a \u201cdrastic difference\u201d compared with his time spent in the United States. He moved to Buffalo in New York to do a master\u2019s in robotics in 2021, before moving to San Francisco in 2023, a city that has long suffered its own housing crisis.<\/p>\n

Despite a severe housing shortage and infamous rents, while working at a tech company there, he says his rent was about a third of his income.<\/p>\n

He now works 20 hours per week at Dublin Airport<\/a>, the maximum allowed as an international student, and despite sharing a double bed, more than half his pay is spent on rent each month.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have enough money to cover my food expenses for the month, but socialising is a bit tough,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Despite sharing his room, and his bed, he describes his current apartment as a \u201cblessing\u201d, largely owing to the fact that his apartment is in a gated community, where he feels safe.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Student accommodation crisis single biggest barrier to completing educationOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

A sense of security was important to him after a spate of seemingly random attacks on Indian nationals this year.<\/p>\n

Jain says he too was targeted, and recalls being \u201ckicked\u201d by a teenager who passed him by on an e-scooter and laughed while he was waiting for a bus to work in June.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was shocked. Why would you do that to another human? For a week, I was talking to my father and was thinking about going home. I didn\u2019t feel physically safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still concerned, that\u2019s why it gives me a sense of peace, where I stay. It protects me and I don\u2019t have to worry about these attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jain believes he is one of the \u201clucky ones\u201d, saying he knows other international students in Dublin living in an apartment with nine occupants in total.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not authorised by the apartment [management] but people are doing it without their knowledge.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know someone who lives in a house where there\u2019s a person staying in the storeroom, and it\u2019s not just one, there are many who do that. They do it because they get a bed in a closet for like \u20ac300 or \u20ac400,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would never stay in a store room because it really messes with your mental health.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another group of three friends share one room meant for one person, he says, alternating who sleeps in the single bed each night, and who sleeps downstairs in the livingroom.<\/p>\n

While sharing his bed can be challenging at times, he says he and his roommate sometimes work different hours, meaning they do not share it every night.<\/p>\n

He sometimes works late until 2am or 3am, while his roommate might leave for work at 5am, he says, \u201cso it\u2019s not that much\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe chances of an overlap is like once every three or four days.\u201d<\/p>\n

Orla Lehane, executive director of the Irish Council for International Students<\/a>, said the housing crisis is having a \u201csevere impact\u201d on international students in Ireland, such as Jain.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany are facing overcrowded and poor-quality accommodation, paying unaffordable rents or being pushed into informal subletting arrangements where they have little or no legal protection. We also see international students disproportionately targeted by accommodation scams.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lehane said the conditions faced by these students affect not only their wellbeing, but \u201crisk damaging Ireland\u2019s reputation\u201d, saying \u201curgent action\u201d is needed to increase affordable student accommodation and protect students from exploitation.<\/p>\n

Jain says he was made aware of the living arrangement by his live-in landlord before he moved in, and despite this, he said it was a \u201cclear choice\u201d after his first apartment.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes I do want to spend some time alone but I can\u2019t now in my room, so I rely on the living area or the lounge area in the building. This is what I consider my space now, which is not exactly healthy, but it\u2019s the best I have.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cHonestly, I consider myself one of the lucky ones because my flatmates are really good, everyone\u2019s clean,\u201d says…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,39541,8106,18,8752,19,387,17,129720,4097,21680,12548],"class_list":{"0":"post-248939","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-dublin-9","10":"tag-dublin-city-university","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-housing-crisis","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-india","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-irish-council-for-international-students-icos","17":"tag-renting","18":"tag-student-accommodation","19":"tag-third-level"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115773494320277074","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}