Ireland: accommodation crisis sees woeful overcrowding

爱尔兰：住房危机导致过度拥挤

International English language students are continuing to feel the horrific effects of Ireland’s housing crisis, with reports of some students renting bunk beds in crowded.

国际英语学生继续感受到爱尔兰住房危机的可怕影响，据报道，一些学生在拥挤的环境中租用双层床。

One group of Brazilian students, according to RTÉ News, was living in a disused nightclub on Dublin’s Leeson Street for two months before they were then relocated to a “crowded and mouldy flat” nearby – and paying €400 a month for the displeasure.

据RTÉNews报道，一组巴西学生在都柏林Leeson街一家废弃的夜总会住了两个月，然后被转移到附近的一个“拥挤发霉的公寓”，并每月支付400欧元的不满。

“I’m from Brazil. It’s a third world country. So I never expected to meet this here. I never expected to be exploited in this way. For me it’s a bad surprise,” Amanda Nogueira said.

阿曼达·诺盖拉（AmandaNogueira）说：“我来自巴西。它是第三世界国家。所以我从没想过会在这里遇到这种情况。我从没想过会受到这样的剥削。对我来说，这是一个不好的惊喜。”。

“They want students to come here to work and to turn the money. But we don’t have any space to live,” she continued.

她继续说道：“他们希望学生来这里工作和赚钱。但我们没有任何生活空间。”。

“I think just the because of the pandemic, the problem has just been kind of magnetised,” David Russell, Chair of the Progressive College Network, told The PIE News.

“我认为正是因为这种流行病，这个问题才有点被吸引住了，”进步学院网络主席大卫·拉塞尔告诉《馅饼新闻》。

“There’s simply not enough out there”

“根本没有足够的资源”

“The schools are delighted to welcome back the students now we’re at the tail end of the pandemic, and most schools try to do as much as possible, in regards organising accommodation,” he commented.

他评论道：“学校很高兴欢迎学生回来，现在我们正处于疫情的尾声，大多数学校都在尽可能多地安排住宿。”。

“We certainly we do our best to try to source accommodation where we can. And then unfortunately, there’s simply not enough out there,” Russell added.

拉塞尔补充道：“我们当然会尽最大努力找到我们能找到的住处。但不幸的是，那里根本不够。”。

The new space that Nogueira and other Brazilian students have been moved is a two bedroom flat, which is being shared between 10 people – and the room she is in houses six bunk beds – directly against Ireland’s 1966 Housing Act.

Nogueira和其他巴西学生搬走的新空间是一套两居室公寓，由10人共用，她所在的房间有六张双层床，这直接违反了爱尔兰1966年的《住房法》。

“A house shall… be deemed to be overcrowded at any time when the number of persons ordinarily sleeping in the house and the number of rooms therein either are such that any two of those persons…not being persons living together as husband and wife, must sleep in the same room,” the Act states.

该法案规定：“如果通常睡在房子里的人的数量和房间的数量，使得其中任何两个人……不是夫妻同居的人，必须睡在同一个房间里，则在任何时候，房子都应被视为过度拥挤。”。

It also decrees that the free air space in any room used as a sleeping location should be no less than four hundred cubic feet – but that overcrowding shall be construed accordingly.

该法案还规定，任何用作睡眠场所的房间的自由空间不得小于400立方英尺，但过度拥挤应据此解释。

The issue is not a new one. The PIE spoke to László Molnárfi, chair of leftist student social progress group Students4Change, who said he’d met a student who was homeless on his “very first day in Dublin”.

这不是一个新问题。该派采访了左翼学生社会进步组织Students4Change主席拉斯洛·莫尔纳菲（LászlóMolnárfi），他说自己在“都柏林的第一天”遇到了一个无家可归的学生。

“Many of us, both EU and non-EU international students, are forced into expensive student accommodation… due to not knowing the private rental market when we arrive in Dublin,” said Molnárfi.

Molnárfi说：“我们中的许多人，包括欧盟和非欧盟的国际学生，都被迫住进昂贵的学生宿舍……因为我们到达都柏林时不了解私人租赁市场。”。

“It is never the college, the course of the Gardaí that protect students from evictions – but direct action community power like CATU, Ireland’s national tenants union.

“保护学生免受驱逐的从来不是学院，而是像爱尔兰全国租户联盟（CATU）这样的直接行动社区力量。

“The government’s complicity cannot be overstated either as they transformed our universities into for-profit business through decades of underfunding,” Molnárfi claimed.

Molnárfi声称：“政府的共谋也不为过，因为他们通过数十年的资金不足将我们的大学转变为营利性企业。”。

The Irish Council for International Students and the Union of Students in Ireland have previously warned that the crisis in student accommodation is forcing many international students into overcrowded accommodation. Other reports have suggested that the problem is not limited to Dublin only, with students in Limerick and Galway experiencing issues.

爱尔兰国际学生理事会和爱尔兰学生联合会此前警告称，学生住宿危机迫使许多国际学生住宿过度拥挤。其他报告表明，问题不仅限于都柏林，利默里克和戈尔韦的学生也遇到了问题。

Russell said that schools could try to communicate better with students, to let them now what their expectations should be or could be.

拉塞尔说，学校可以尝试更好地与学生沟通，让他们知道自己的期望应该是什么或可能是什么。

“I think maybe if the government could set up some kind of an office, so that if a tenant was in a scenario where they felt they were being treated badly, for example in a situation where there’s six, seven, eight, nine or 10 people in a room, then they could contact this body.

“我认为，如果政府可以设立某种办公室，这样，如果租户感到自己受到了恶劣的待遇，例如房间里有六、七、八、九或十个人，那么他们可以联系这个机构。

“The main push has to come from the top, because if there’s nobody driving the quality, it amounts to this crazy stuff that’s happening.”

“主要推动力必须来自高层，因为如果没有人推动质量，那就等于是正在发生的疯狂事件。”

One point made regarding issues with the housing crisis, especially for international students, was that lots of people who are tenants are subletting their rooms without the knowledge of their landlords.

关于住房危机问题，特别是对留学生而言，有一点是，许多房客在房东不知情的情况下转租了自己的房间。

Another issue was the landlords themselves – “greedy” landlords, as put by Molnárfi, who aim to make as much money off vulnerable overseas students as possible.

另一个问题是房东本身，即莫尔纳菲所说的“贪婪”房东，他们的目标是尽可能多地从弱势海外学生身上赚钱。

“If there’s nobody driving the quality, it amounts to this crazy stuff that’s happening”

“如果没有人来推动质量，那就相当于发生了这种疯狂的事情”

“I think the Airbnb scenario is something that should be looked at, certainly in cities. There are a lot of Airbnb properties that are just sitting there waiting for short term leases where, where possibly they could be made to house students,” Russell noted.

拉塞尔指出：“我认为Airbnb的情况是应该考虑的，当然是在城市里。有很多Airbnb的房产只是在等待短期租赁，在那里，它们可能被用来为学生提供住房。”。

“I also know for a fact that there are countless properties lying idle around the country. Some of them are. Some of them are derelict,” he added.

他补充道：“我还知道，全国各地有无数闲置的房产。其中一些是闲置的，一些是被遗弃的。”。

Of course, these buildings would need to be in a much more fit state to house students that the Leeson Street bar where Nogueira and her compatriots had to stay.

当然，这些建筑需要在一个更适合的状态，以容纳学生的利森街酒吧，诺盖拉和她的同胞必须停留。

“We are very sad about how students are treated here, since it is immigrants who sustain this country’s economy,” an unnamed student who stayed with Nogueira said.

“我们对学生在这里受到的待遇感到非常难过，因为是移民维持了这个国家的经济，”一位与诺盖拉呆在一起的不具名学生说。