George Burton says things are moving in a positive direction as Canadore College works on its international student housing situation.
Back in early September, more than 20 international students from India camped out in front of Canadore's Commerce Court campus due to a student housing shortage on campus and around the city of North Bay.
Canadore College officials met with an international student organization and came to a resolution two days later. Burton, Canadore's president and CEO says he will give a detailed summary of the situation as soon as late this week.
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See related: International Student Housing dilemma resolved
Burton addressed the issue during a media conference on Friday at Canadore's Commerce Court campus.
"I am going to be pretty brief on this subject because I promised a fulsome response to everything that was raised, and we are going to do that but things have settled down as you can tell, students are being housed," said Burton.
"The vast, vast majority are in permanent housing. We still think we have 17 in temporary accommodations until October, Some of the Greens are coming online as we announced and will be moved in then. We still are searching for accommodations for two families that have come to North Bay. We hope to have those resolved early this week at the latest. "
The Greens, Burton was referring to are the shut-down old townhouses that Canadore is looking to revitalize to help alleviate the housing shortage
"We did an assessment of the Greens and rather than tear them down, it was more economical for us to renovate them so they are being torn down to the walls," he said.
"The external walls are cement of course, the infrastructure is in a good state, so we are hoping to renovate three-quarters of the Greens over the next year and a half.
"There is one row that will be demolished because they are sitting in a flood area so probably by next year we will have half of the Greens opened and the following year the Greens will be fully rehabilitated and the economics of it made it an easy decision to make."
