Looking back on the UTMSU’s housing-related initiatives
The Medium spoke with UTMSU VP External Daniel Ripoll, who offered insights into the Union’s housing-related efforts during the past year.
School is hard enough without the stress of navigating a volatile housing market. For many University of Toronto (U of T) Mississauga (UTM) students, having to put up with expensive and substandard living conditions is nevertheless a necessary price to pay for higher education.
In February 2025, the Greater Toronto Area was the second most expensive place to rent an apartment in Canada behind Vancouver, according to a report by Rentals.ca and Urbanation. Toronto and Mississauga have the third and fifth most expensive rental markets in the country, respectively.
High costs and a low supply of housing can leave many students vulnerable to exorbitant rates and exploitative landlords off-campus, a problem the UTM Students’ Union (UTMSU) is acutely aware of.
Over the past year, one of UTMSU’s main goals was to advocate for students’ housing rights and increase local dwelling options. UTMSU Vice President External Daniel Ripoll sat down for an interview with The Medium to recap the union’s housing initiatives.
Informing, partnering, and lobbying
One of the union’s most substantial accomplishments last year was the creation of the Housing Committee, an advocacy team of UTM student volunteers. Ripoll expressed that the Committee’s main goal is “to educate students on housing and their housing rights.”
“You hear the same complaints every time: rent’s too high, [the] landlord doesn’t want to pay for repairs,” he said, referring to student testimonies from a union housing survey. With the Committee, Ripoll wants to ensure that students are well-informed so they can avoid finding themselves in poor living conditions.
To provide information about housing law, the UTMSU works with Downtown Legal Services, which offers free legal assistance to all U of T students.
Additionally, the union hosted two workshops at the Student Centre earlier in March, titled, “Know Your Rights!” and “Does Your Landlord Suck?”, to help students with their rental challenges and concerns. To deliver these events, the UTMSU partnered with HOUSE Canada, a non-profit organization that researches and develops affordable housing for students.
HOUSE and UTMSU are currently working together to set up a co-op housing project site near UTM and conduct canvassing for issues related to housing in Mississauga.
Ripoll said the UTMSU plans to use the results from canvassing activities to inform a lobby document, which they plan to release later this month to present to Mississauga City Council. The document will focus on illegal multi-tenant rooming houses.
“A lot of landlords will buy a three-bedroom house and partition these rooms to have two people [in each], and they’ll charge full price per partition,” he explained. “The City has told us that they are aware of these houses, but due to City regulations it’s very hard to root them out.”
Ripoll argues that the lobby document is necessary to get the City to act on student housing. “Councillors are very receptive, but to get stuff done in this position, you need to go out and do the research for them,” he said, reflecting on his past lobbying experiences. “Having that data already and just bringing it to City Council just makes it way easier for them to act on it.”
Students leading change
With his tenure as VP External coming to a close, Ripoll encouraged students who want to enact change in their community to “just go and do it.”
“You’d be surprised at how much you can get done just by reaching out. Not a lot of people will take the time to e-mail a city councillor, not a lot of people [will] take the time to volunteer at the UTMSU or at the Housing Committee. But if you take that initiative and you reach out, more often than not you’ll be rewarded.”
He also said that UTMSU is open to partnering with other UTM student groups for its housing initiatives. “If any student group is interested in joining the Housing Committee, they’re more than welcome to do so.”
After the 2025 spring elections, it will be up to the new UTMSU executives to continue the housing initiatives Ripoll and his team have facilitated over the past year.
