Comment: Having a hard time finding student housing?

Are you reading this from the comfort of your own home? A place with a stable lease, within manageable distance of your place of study and with a rent that doesn’t bankrupt you?

I hope you are, but fact is that a lot of students have a hard time finding a place to live in Copenhagen. This is especially true here in the beginning of the semester, and even more so for international students, who might not have a network of friends and family to help them out.

Ideally, this problem would be recognized and fixed by the politicians, and while awareness does seem to be rising, the problem obviously hasn’t been solved yet.

Screwed over by the situation

Getting into the study of your dreams is fantastic, and you should be able to focus on that, instead of worrying about your housing situation. Every year, international students end up dropping out and leaving Denmark, because they simple weren’t able to find a place to live, and it’s hard to really invest yourself in your field of study if you’re living out of a box.

So what are we doing about it?

Good question. Well, in the long run we try to convince the politicians, on both local and national level, to provide us with an adequate amount of student housing. But that doesn’t really solve the problem for those of you who are being screwed over by the situation at this very moment.

All for free

That’s why the Student Council has established the ‘sofaformidling’, a means for us to help each other out. Here, fellow students and other helpful people agree to lend out a spare room or a couch, giving you a place to crash while you search for more permanent lodging. There is an English version of the website, and while most of the specific descriptions are in Danish, Google Translate should be able to give you an idea of what is being offered, and most danish people have no problem speaking and writing English, so just send them a message.

This is something we’re doing to help each other out, and thus both the service and all the places to stay are being offered for free. Check it out at www.sofaformidling.dk

Check our previous articles on the Student Council couch surfing drive here, and here.

universitypost@adm.ku.dk

Like us on Facebook for features, guides and tips on upcoming events. Follow us on Twitter for links to other Copenhagen academia news stories. Sign up for the University Post weekly newsletter here.