Europe

From Letsgo-Wiki

[edit] Shortage of housing obstruct mobility.

The shortage of affordable housing is a critical pan-European problem and especially a problem faced by exchange students and academic staff travelling abroad to study and teach.

Unfortunately this obstacle does not receive the attention it deserves in the public forum. The fact of the matter is however that noumerous students actually give up going abroad due to lack of affordable housing. This is not merely a problem facing students originating from the new countries in the European Union, but a problem for students from the traditional EU countries as well.

It is a well documented problem and one that I am constantly trying to combat in collaboration with two colleagues. We have created the online service called CasaSwap [1] in which students and academic staff alike may exchange, let and sublet housing. The service is completely free of charge and constitute one way of combatting the critical obstacle to student and staff mobility. By creating this forum we also hope to create a service that may open up and make transparent the housing market.

It is the intention of this article to raise the problem of lacking housing and to encourage others to debate this ever increasing obstacle to free mobility.