As COVID-19 lockdown continues to bite, different individuals have started changing their lifestyle from one business to another as a way of coping up with the situation.
In the education sector, the lockdown has not only affected teachers and school owners but also hostel owners whose customers are at seated home waiting for the re-opening schools by the government.
Normally hostel owners always depend on students who are in higher institutions of learning by hiring out their rooms/apartments to them on a semester or monthly basis. When the government ordered for the closure of schools on 18th March 2020 for 30 days, majority of the students left their property where they were residing hoping that they would report back soon.
As it now approaches to 4 months since the closure of universities and higher institutions, most of the hostel owners have lost hope in the lifting of lockdown on the education sector.
According to Collins a student at Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST) and a resident in Boma, landlords have started calling them to go and pick their property to enable them look for other source of income.
“Most of my friends have been getting calls from their landlords requesting them to remove their property to enable landlords turn their rooms into rentals as an alternative source of income. The most affected students are those who were residing in hotels on a monthly basis particularly areas like Taso Village, Boma and Kakyeka,’’ He told Campus Bee.
The situation is not different to students of Kampala International University Western Campus especially those who stay in Ishaka town where landlords turned empty rooms into rentals.
Other sources indicate that some landlords propose to turn into new businesses if schools remain closed beyond August.
