Nowadays, student housing is a phenomenon that is scientifically underexplored, especially in light of the profound transformations in the housing market in recent years. Yet, it is crucial for reducing the discrimination and vulnerabilities often faced by young people studying in cities.

The StudMiHome project began in October 2023, funded by the Polisocial Award program, which is dedicated to the social responsibility activities of Politecnico di Milano. It involves three departments (Architecture and Urban Studies, Design, Architecture, Built Environment, and Construction Engineering), 11 partners, and 5 supporters, aiming to integrate research, intervention, and dissemination activities.

The research aims to investigate students' housing trajectories in their interactions with the private rental market. This involves paying attention to how out-of-town students search for, find, live in, and leave their homes.

Thinking about this topic from a relational and multifactorial perspective requires considering a multitude of aspects: the economic dimensions of the rental market and its supply; the individual and collective strategies of market operators (real estate agents, landlords), those in the non-profit sector (associations, cooperatives, tenant unions), and those of the students; the organizational and institutional dimensions of the entities involved in various aspects of housing (from universities, to agencies for the Right to University Study, to student associations); as well as more intangible yet pressing dimensions, such as emotional factors and frequent phenomena of deception and fraud, or simply the significant difficulty in finding sufficiently stable and welcoming housing solutions.

The research plans to study the private housing market from both the demand side (students) and the supply side (landlords and intermediaries) to understand its ecosystem.

The investigation employs a mix of methods and techniques: co-design workshops, three surveys (targeting university students in Milanese universities, real estate agents, and landlords), qualitative interviews with students, interviews with key informants, focus groups, visual analysis, and analysis of drawings and plans of housing produced by the students themselves.

One of the project's objectives is to experiment with a pilot action to create a housing assistance service at Off Campus Nolo. The goal of this service is to help find decent housing solutions, provide legal information and advice, practical support, and guidance to existing university services that can also be involved in housing issues, as well as those already present in the area, thereby reducing the economic, cultural, social, and material life disparities that characterize young university students and their families.