Around 600 dorm-less international students are expected to come to Arrival Day in search of around 100 accommodations. However, this year, there will be no “shortcuts” to housing if one stands in the queue.
“We want to make [the housing process] more fair,” says organizer Sara van Lunteren.
It has sort of become part of the norm — that is, for some international students to come to Lund without secure housing — to later stand in line outside of the AF Castle’s doors one day before Arrival Day with the hope of catching housing not taken by other new arrivals.
But this year they will stand there in vain.
“We have decided to create other and much fairer routines for handling this situation,” says department director Sara van Lunteren at the LU accommodation.
“Wrong to just let them sit there”
It is LU accommodation that oversees the contracts that cover the ca 1400 apartments that the university can acquire for international students.
“We have received criticism for our way of handling the issue before. Somewhere down the line, we have allowed for queueing to continue by not doing anything about it.”
Lotteries instead
Lotteries for this year’s Arrival Day will now become a specific lottery of queuing numbers for anyone meeting requirements who come to the Castle before 9 AM.
Has this information been made available?
“Information should already have been sent, so we hope that it will be understood that there is no point in queuing,” says Sara van Lunteren who adds that information will be made available and personnel will be at hand to help students if some people still decide to come.
Likely fewer housing opportunities this year
Last year, 61 students slept inside of Café Athen (the bistro in the AF castle) and a total of 100 apartments were handed out.
“Fewer housing opportunities are expected this year,” admits Sara van Lunteren. “But there were also available apartments and dorms left even after last year’s Arrival Day that nobody wanted.”
[poll id=”4″]Translation: An Holmqvist
Check out the blueprints on the temporary housing.
