Housing in Winnipeg?

June 7, 2008 3:22 PM

Where should a first year medical student live in Winnipeg?

My girlfriend is attending the University of Manitoba for medicine come August. Which neighbourhoods in Winnipeg are "best"?

Safe, clean and very quiet accomodation is sought - either a bachelor suite or one-bedroom, apartment or basement suite. The medical school is downtown, so a place near there, or on a direct (red service) bus line would be ideal.

posted by Orange Pamplemousse to education (4 comments total)

There are plenty of apartments downtown (I'm in one right now!) though a lot of the buildings are fairly old ("character" suites) inside the square of osbourne / the river / main / portage is a pretty safe area despite what you hear from some. If you venture too far west of Osbourne or North of Portage things start to go downhill, with the exception of the "granola belt" around wolsoley.

Osbourne Village has lots of old character suites and a few swank new condo's and lots of young students, young slackers, and the oh so trendy of all ages inhabit this area. Great shopping and a nice atmosphere. This is just on the other side of the river from the area mentioned above, the big streets are Roslyn, River, Stradbrook and Osbourne.

If suburbs is more her style, there are some nice areas on the South east and south west of the city... though it's a substantial commute to downtown.

St. Boniface is an old French area but lots of nice little places and very convenient for getting to downtown.

Fort Rouge is another nice area, with swank shopping and eating on corydon and lots of side by sides / split levle apartments and oldish apartment blocks.

That's about all I got off the top of my head. Any thoughts on a budget?
posted by utsutsu at 3:39 PM on June 7, 2008

Budget wise probably around 500 a month for a bachelor, 700 for a one bedroom? Not sure if that's reasonable (she's moving from Vancouver).

She'd definately want to be in the city, not in the suburbs. No car, hence the need to be on a bus route. Any good sites to look at? Craigslist and Kijiji are slim, and most of the corrporate sites are less than helpful.

Thanks for the info on Osbourne, Fout Rouge and St. Boniface!
posted by Orange Pamplemousse at 3:53 PM on June 7, 2008

Colony Square downtown is a huge apartment complex which I hear is fairly nice, and it's very convenient. Osborne Village used to be the hip center, but that's been migrating over towards Corydon Village. Lotta scary types hanging around Osborne these days. Either area is very convenient to downtown bus routes, and great for shopping and restaurants, but not terribly quiet. (Although some side streets off Corydon are quite nice, and quiet.) Grant Ave. is quieter, safer, has a lot of apartments, some of them very nice and affordable, and is very convenient to buses (about 15-20 mins to downtown). That's the area I would recommend; it's where I'm living now. The area is called Fort Rouge. Here are a few rental sites she might try.
posted by Koko at 4:17 PM on June 7, 2008

If you find a place that looks good, you can check the bus routes on the Winnipeg Transit site: http://winnipegtransit.com/index.jsp. If you run some queries through this the navigo system, you can start to get a feel for how the transit system works.

In a quick blurb, the system is great on Portage and Pembina Road, and mildly painful on places away from those roads. Osbourne Village is probably the among the best bus depots for frequency of service and locations in the city, with the other being the Fort Gary Campus Bus Depot.

If you have to go to both campuses, I'd stay downtown or Osbourne, otherwise you're going to be spending to much time commuting. If you only have to go the medical campus, you're good for a most areas downtown and in Western areas along Pembina, which may mean a cheaper rent outside of the central neighbourhoods.

In another Osbourne plus, it's the only neighbourhood in Winnipeg where it's reasonable to not have a car. In the negative department, regarding the "scary types", I've always felt it was suburban types who commuted to the area because it was easy to get there by bus. Therefore, you have drugs and all that, and little creeps with $500 of alternative body modifications and $80 haircuts begging you for money. There's more than just those kinds of people hanging out here, of course. The usual street smarts apply here as they do in most urban areas.

Budget wide, I thinks that's reasonable. Be careful of the heating -- it could cost you a lot to heat in the winter, something you wouldn't factor in coming from Vancouver. I know I factor that in when I live in places that aren't Winnipeg!
posted by sleslie at 7:53 PM on June 7, 2008