Student

Living in the barracks in Ede: sharing a kitchen with seventy people

First-year students are complaining about the emergency housing that Idealis realised at the former barracks in Ede. They have to share rooms, the lavatories and showers are dirty, and they have to share the kitchen with 70 other students. On top of it all, they have to deal with burglaries and theft.
Albert Sikkema

© Guy Ackermans

The dorms on the Kazernelaan in Ede are a last-resort solution for Dutch and international students. ‘This complex is really meant to accommodate as many students as possible for the start of their studies in Wageningen’, says Marisca Wind, spokesperson for Idealis. ‘The Kazernelaan is a complex that is not comparable to our other locations in any way.’ Students can choose: either accept a room here or have no room at all. They do keep their registration time for transfers to other complexes.

Nevertheless, this housing solution is hard on many international students. They have to share rooms, with only a curtain in the middle of the room. This affects their privacy, they reported in a survey held by Resource during the introduction week. There is a fungal smell in the lavatories and showers, and they have to share a kitchen with 70 students. There are only seven refrigerators and stoves available for all students. A total of 140 students can live in the 70 rooms on the Kazernelaan.

Theft

However, what Swedish students Saga Larsson and Ulva Wahlstedt are most concerned about is safety. The two women have been sharing a room on the Kazernelaan for a few weeks. In that short time, a fellow student had forgotten to lock his room, and all his belongings were stolen. Moreover, there was an attempted burglary in another room, and a laptop was stolen from a student in the kitchen. This creates a feeling of insecurity among the students.

According to Wind, Idealis has not received any complaints from the students about the housing on the Kazernelaan, but they are aware of the burglaries and theft. ‘Our manager is on it. We will inform the residents on how they can prevent burglary and theft, and how supervision and cleaning work in the Nieuwe Kazernelaan complex. I hope that this will help resolve most issues.’

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