“You know, this is eating up my savings at a lightning speed “ Guido said with some noticeable resentment in his voice, after explaining that he expects that he will spend close to 2000 euros in total for both hotels and food, and this only until the 17th of september. This is the date when his reservation will end, but he doesn’t know what to do next. He just hopes that he will have found something until then.

Currently, Guido is paying for multiple room-finding agencies, and has to spend 2-3 hours a day writing messages on kamernet and facebook, while trying to also at least survive the demanding masters program that he is investing so much money in. Besides that, he has to adapt to a foreign country he doesn’t know, in a place where he has neither friends nor family. He describes that it is immensely stressful, having to sleep in a different room everyday. He reports that everything around him feels unfamiliar and not homely at all, making it hard for him to recover after his classes. He is wondering himself, if this problem is well known, why does it keep happening every year? Why is the university not creating more housing?

Well, I believe all of us are asking ourselves that.

(Text by Lukas Stock and image by @Pascalmichiel)