Student outlines inadequate heating, mental health support, and emergency medical response equipment
A student living in Chestnut Student Residence (Chestnut) shared their concerns with the living and working conditions with Ultra Vires, alleging that the residence has inadequate heating, mental health support, and emergency medical response equipment on-site.
Chestnut houses over 1000 students from U of T, of which approximately 75 percent are first-year undergraduate students. Each floor has a residence don, typically an upper-year student, who is employed by the Residence Life Office to provide support and programming to students. Dons are compensated through room and board, and work overnight on-call three to four times a month. The dons are supervised by Residence Life Coordinators (RLCs), who also live in the building and work full-time to support the residence’s students.
The student, who wished to remain anonymous, disclosed that residents between floors 12–20 did not receive heating units until October 21, around the time a resident called 311 to report inadequate temperature control on these floors. The residents later discovered the heating units were primarily marketed for greenhouse use.
In a comment to UV, a U of T spokesperson stated that “[Chestnut] is in a three-year plan to replace all the in-room heating and cooling units within the residence” and that delays were due to supply chain disruptions. Instead, they have worked closely with a mechanical engineer to provide a temporary heating solution, “[deploying] heavier duty, commercial-grade equipment that allows us to provide more heating capacity than would otherwise be possible.”
University residences are generally excluded from the Ontario Residential Tenancies Act under section 5(g) or section 7(1)(5). The maintenance standards do not apply, including the regulation that the room temperature must be at least 20 degrees Celsius. Dons and students are unable to seek a remedy before the Landlord and Tenant Board.
Shae Rothery (2L), who worked in Residence Services at the University of Calgary, commented that the University should be working with students to find them alternate housing when it gets cold. “We had access to temperature guns and would offer to re-house students temporarily in a vacant unit if the temperature dipped below 19 degrees in the student’s unit.”
The student also noted the lack of mental health support available to dons, especially given the heavy topics and difficult situations they would encounter during their work. In response, a U of T spokesperson noted that “when there are incidents in residence of a sensitive nature, we proactively make arrangements for counselling. Counsellors are always provided upon request or direct referrals are made via Health and Wellness.” The student emphasized the insufficiency of these services including long wait times and a limited number of visits.
Rothery noted that the University of Calgary recently implemented changes so students and staff living in residence could access mental health support pathways separate from the main campus. “We wanted to prioritize student mental health, especially in light of the pandemic. In addition to the Community Ambassadors (“CAs”; equivalent to dons in Ontario), we specifically hired a student for each residence as a Wellness CA and provided them with additional training from Student Wellness Services. We also implemented mandatory sexual violence response training for all RLCs and optional training for student staff, and continued to require all staff to be trained in suicidal ideation response. Residence Services is currently hiring a Residence Wellness Coordinator, a professional staff member with a background in social work or a related field, who will provide wellness support to the residence community.”
Dons at Chestnut were only permitted guests starting November 5, and these guests must be from other U of T residences. In contrast, RLCs have been permitted guests (and pets) since their move-in in late August. The discrepancy is due to the residence occupancy agreement that dons一who are also students一must sign. RLCs are not held to the terms of the same occupancy agreement because they are full-time staff. This is in spite of RLCs being on contract for six months in comparison to the dons’ eight.
On November 19, dons were notified that as of December 1, they would be allowed guests external to U of T. All guests must be fully vaccinated.
The student also indicated their concerns with the available emergency medical response equipment on-site, sharing that there are no automated external defibrillators (AEDs) in the building and dons are not permitted to carry naloxone kits or epi-pens while performing on-duty rounds in the evenings. Naloxone kits that were added to the on-duty equipment were removed and dons were verbally reprimanded. A U of T spokesperson shared that the administration of naloxone is not an expectation of residence staff; instead, they are trained to call campus safety or 911. Similarly, epi-pens are not standard issue in first-aid kits and “it is not part of the [don] responsibilities to administer this medication.”
“When I worked at Residence Services, all of our on-call staff had access to Narcan,” shared Rothery. “There were concerns about student staff carrying needles to inject naloxone, but we thought it would be too much of a liability to not have access, so we pushed the University to let us have the nasal spray instead.”
Bill 141, the Ontario Defibrillator Registration and Public Access Act mandates AEDs be installed in premises accessible to the public. It received Royal Assent in June 2020; however, the Act is not yet in force because the Ministry of Health is still developing the necessary regulations.
