Unfinished campus residence leaves UBC students without rooms

As many as 290 students at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver have been forced to stay with friends, in hotels or, in some cases, in closets, because construction of a campus residence has not yet finished.

The Marine Drive Residence provides furnished units for upper-year and graduate students, according to the university's website. When Phase 2 of the project is soon complete, the residence will house some 1,600 students, the site says.

Scott Macrae, UBC's executive director of public affairs, said the university didn't expect to open Phase 2 until next term, but offered rooms to students on a campus housing waiting list when it found out construction would be completed mid-September.

The students who subsequently applied for a spot were sent an advisory via e-mail that there was a chance their rooms would not be ready when school began on Tuesday and they would have to find their own accommodation for the first two weeks, Macrae said.

"Any student who would be ready to come into residence here had to have understood that was the condition," Macrae said.

Alexandra Clark, a second-year student, said she is sleeping on a mattress in a friend's closet in a neighbouring residence building at the university.

"I am from Toronto, Ont., and I ended up in the situation that I'm in because I am currently waiting for another accommodation on campus, which will not be ready until Sept. 15," she told CBC News.

"[But] I would have loved to have a place of my own to settle in to right away," she said.

Macrae said the university will refund two weeks of rent to students who have to wait for their rooms.