Student Mental Health: When Your PG Stops Feeling Like Home

For students living away from home, their accommodation can have a major impact on everyday well-being.

For many students who move to Delhi for college, a PG is supposed to become a temporary home. It is where they return after classes, keep their books, eat their meals, call their families and slowly build a life away from everything familiar. But what happens when the place meant to provide that sense of comfort starts making you feel unsafe instead?

The recent collapse of a five-storey PG building in Delhi’s Satya Niketan, which killed seven people, including students, has brought student housing back into the spotlight. The tragedy has raised questions about building safety, regulation and the shortage of affordable university hostels. The Delhi High Court also pointed out that inadequate hostel facilities are pushing students towards potentially unsafe private PGs and hostels.

How PG Living Can Affect Students' Mental Health

But the problem with student accommodation does not begin and end with structural safety.

The mental health of students living away from home can suffer when their accommodation becomes a constant source of stress.

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For a student living away from home, the quality of a PG can quietly affect everyday mental well-being. A cramped room, overcrowding, poor food, constant restrictions, lack of privacy, unreliable management or simply the feeling that nobody will listen when something goes wrong can make a place difficult to call home.

Unlike a house where students may have some control over their surroundings, a PG often comes with rules they have little say in. What time they can enter, when the lights should be switched off, whether friends can visit, how food is prepared and even how complaints are handled can depend entirely on the management. When these systems work well, they may feel like minor inconveniences. When they don't, students can begin to feel as though they have very little control over their own living environment.

That feeling matters.

Why Living Away From Home Can Make Student Stress Worse

Moving to another city already comes with its own form of adjustment. Students have to manage academics, money, friendships and responsibilities without the familiar support system of home. For many, their room becomes the only place where they expect to feel completely comfortable. If even that space feels stressful, the pressure can follow them throughout the day.

Adjusting to life in a new city can be challenging for students living away from their families.

Hostel Shortages Push Students Towards Private PGs

The issue becomes more complicated because affordable alternatives are limited. Delhi University has more than 2.5 lakh students but only around 9,000 hostel beds, according to recent reporting. That gap leaves a large number of students, particularly those coming from outside Delhi, dependent on private accommodation.

This means that choosing a PG is not always about finding the nicest room or the best location. Often, it is about finding something affordable, close enough to college and available at the right time. Safety, privacy and emotional comfort can become secondary considerations when students and families are working within a limited budget.

Why Students May Stay Silent About Poor PG Conditions

Students may hesitate to discuss problems with their accommodation because they do not want to worry their families.

For parents, there is another layer to the problem. Sending a child to another city already comes with anxiety. Students may also hesitate to complain about their living conditions because they do not want to worry their families or risk losing their accommodation. A problem that begins as discomfort can therefore remain unspoken for months.

And when students are constantly worried about where they are living, studying becomes harder too. It is difficult to concentrate on assignments or exams when your mind is occupied with whether your room is secure, whether your food is safe or whether your complaint will actually be heard.

The Satya Niketan tragedy has made this conversation impossible to ignore. Following the collapse, authorities began looking into the safety of PGs, while the Delhi High Court called for inspections of buildings housing PGs and hostels. A PIL has also sought a more organized policy for providing hostels to students across Delhi University colleges.

What Should a Safe and Student-Friendly PG Provide?

But regulation should not only mean checking whether a building is standing.

A genuinely student-friendly accommodation system has to consider the everyday experience of living there. Is there adequate space? Is there privacy? Is the food decent? Is there someone students can approach when they have a problem? Are complaints taken seriously? Are students protected from overcrowding and unsafe conditions? And perhaps most importantly, do they feel that the place they are paying to live in actually respects them?

A PG does not have to feel exactly like home. But it should at least feel safe enough to rest, study and live without constantly being on edge.

Students leave their homes to build a future. The least they should have to expect from the city they move to is a place where they can live safely while doing it.