As the fall semester begins, students are still waiting for a space in housing
For some University of Regina (U of R) students, securing a place to live on campus meant getting put on a waitlist.
Students applying for residence for the 2026-2027 academic year were notified in late July that a room was not guaranteed, as the university’s available residence spaces had been filled. Housing services subsequently opened up a waitlist for students who had applied for housing. Bryan Wilson, the manager of housing services, said they had filled around 1,300 rooms, which was close to the total capacity.
“Every year, we’ve gone up by an average of 7 to 10 per cent from the past four years. A waitlist comes when we’ve exhausted all possible spaces we have,” he said.
How the waitlists work
“So, what happened is, towards the end of July, we were starting to compare the numbers of applications that we still had to process and the number of spaces we had available, and we wanted to get the notice out to students as soon as we possibly could to let them know that there’s a possibility that they would not get a placement for this fall, because we can’t give a room to somebody that doesn’t exist, then we continued to process applications. And at that time, we made every physical space that we could make available, available to students. So, we closed our showrooms, packed them up, and made them available,” explained Wilson.
“One of the bigger challenges that we had from the student side is that, often, one of the things that we’ve been able to do in the past for students is offer late move out for those that are graduating or deciding to move off campus for the spring summer. We really had to stop accepting those just because if we offered a late move out for spring/summer, we couldn’t offer that room to a student for the fall. So, we were trying to make sure that we got every room that we possibly could ready for students.”
The non-refundable application fee
There has been a lot of fuss on campus from students who did not get a room and have paid the $50 application fee. It stated on the housing website that the fee is non-refundable, whether the student gets a space in housing or not.
“So, we’ve been very clear from the get-go that our $50 application fee has been non-refundable. So, regardless of whether or not you get a space, it is clear on the application that it’s a non-refundable fee. We still process those applications and we still have to communicate with those students. And so, it just allows us to confirm that they are interested in living on campus,” said Wilson.
What U of R students think
A computer science student said, “It was extremely stressful for me because I always live in housing. This time I had to stay off campus, and it was more expensive than I expected.”
“I am so glad I got a space in housing because my classes have very different hours so I can take the bus all time, especially not in the winter,” said Annie Stewar, a fourth-year social work student.
What students can expect from housing
”Our team is working hard to keep up with those requests and to process them as quickly as we can. Again, we are here to serve and support students, and so we try to do that to the best of our abilities. So, as things become available, we’ll continue to offer them and get folks in,” said Wilson.
Housing services is still processing applications, but through this whole process, they have encouraged students to seek other options just because they cannot guarantee what will become available and when.
