People of Georgian: Helping students ‘energizes’ housing coordinator    

April 9, 2025

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The Georgian community is full of unique, inspiring perspectives —and we’re sharing them as part of an ongoing series.

People of Georgian: Meet Sarah Stackhouse

There are so many people who don’t know that Georgian’s housing department exists, even though we’ve been in existence for three years.

Our main office is at the Barrie Campus, but we go to all campuses – whether it’s virtual or in person. Owen Sound, Orillia, wherever – we’ll go there. We are here, and we genuinely want to help students.

‘Students are the most important part of my job’

I really love working with students. They’re fascinating, incredibly resourceful and intelligent. They’ll come to me to have conversations about housing, but then we’ll spend an hour just talking about their life in general.

Students are the most important part of my job, and that’s what I really like about working at Georgian.

One example that stands out from over the years is when an international student, who was also a parent to three children, arrived in Canada but didn’t have anywhere to go. In less than a week, we were able to work with a private housing company to get them a beautiful, furnished place to live.

We also helped them get their children registered for school, and we helped the student get situated so they could start their Georgian career feeling prepared. I’m not sure that she would have had that experience if the housing department was not here.

All that work happened so quickly, it was exhausting, but it was also really amazing and heartwarming to see a family go from terrified to happy. It was great to see how everything just fit all together.

Helping students start ‘the next chapter of their lives’

There can be a lot of work in this job, but the students energize me. It’s exciting to see people come here and start the next chapter of their lives.

I’m happy to see the students every day, whether it’s for a five-minute or five-hour interaction.

Whether you give somebody a housing listing or help them work through a really difficult housing scenario, it’s satisfying to see students’ gratitude for having a place to come and get the services they need.

Sarah Stackhouse (she/her), Housing and Outreach Coordinator based at the Barrie Campus but serving all seven Georgian campuses. Sarah is also an alumna of the Addictions: Treatment and Prevention program (class of 2004), and she recently won a 2025 Georgian College Board of Governors Award of Distinction in the Award of Excellence – Support Staff category. Congratulations, Sarah!