Rent: The Teacher's Resource

Objective

Students will consider the positive and negative aspects of different types of rental housing, and think about how those different types of housing may or may not fit their needs.

Curriculum Links

• LIFE15 (a) Identify factors (e.g., stages in family life cycle, accessibility, culture, budget) that influence decisions regarding
  living independently.
• LIFE15 (b) Describe potential benefits and challenges of living with others (e.g., roommates, siblings, partners) and living alone.
• LIFE15 (f) Investigate services and supports in the community (e.g., local housing authority) to help resolve issues with housing access.
• LIFE15 (I) Research the factors that can lead to homelessness among young people such as lack of adequate income, access to affordable housing, discrimination, mental health issues and family breakdown.

Procedure

1. Lead class discussion about living on one’s own. What kinds of things can be expected? Focal points for conversation could be social, cultural, financial, or educational.

2. Introduce types of accommodations available for rent, using the list from Types of Rental Housing to guide discussion. Point out that there are benefits and drawbacks to every living situation and many of these are subjective.

3. Break students into small groups and assign “Types of Rental Housing: Pros and Cons”. Teachers may wish to have each group intensively examine one type of housing and report back to class, instead of each group looking at all possibilities.

4. As an alternative to having each group fill out the housing pros and cons chart, teachers may have students put their answers on sticky notes. Teachers can then have the class create a single board display to refer back to throughout the unit of study.

5. From all possible options of rental housing discussed in this lesson, ask students to consider what would be their ideal type for this point in their life. Discuss what they would be willing to compromise if they cannot achieve their ideal?

6. To expand conversations around types of rental housing and their various pros and cons to include roommates and room-and-board situations, read “Living With Others.”
KEY QUESTIONS
• What are the benefits and drawbacks of living with others?
• What kind of person would be your ideal roommate?
• What kinds of things would you include in a written agreement with a roommate?
Students could pair up and create roommate agreements.

Further Exploration

7. Sometimes roommate disputes will end up in Small Claims Court. For more information about the small claims court process in Saskatchewan, check out Going to Small Claims Court.

8. Living together, whether it be individuals living together as roommates or people living together as a society, can be complicated. For case studies of how small groups of people managed to live together—some successful, others not so much—check out Shipwrecked. There is both a full-length teacher resource and a student-friendly newsletter.

9. For an investigation into some possible downsides of corporate landlords and the state of public housing investment in Canada, check out the CBC’s investigation “How ‘financialized’ landlords may be contributing to rising rents in Canada.”

10. Saskatchewan has public housing programs for families, seniors with low incomes, people with disabilities, and people living in select northern and rural communities. These programs provide subsidised rental homes according to financial need. Click here and here for more details.