She came to Canada for an education. Desperate for a place to live, she had to rent a room with no door

Feeling desperate as the first day of classes approached, she signed on for several months of renting a den without a door in a shared apartment. Today, she has a single room in a basement where two other students rent rooms on the same floor, while their landlord lives upstairs. She counts herself lucky, given how many other international students she’s met who’ve fared worse in Toronto’s housing market. And along with seniors on fixed incomes and low-income households, immigrants and students were seen as the most likely rooming house tenants. She’d seen people fall for rental scams, having sent money from overseas for a house or room that didn’t exist.