This text is part of the special booklet For a housing reform
In order to make up for the significant lack of social housing, the Montreal Metropolitan Community (CMM) is considering various approaches, but financial assistance from the State is still necessary.
“Low-income households expect to have access to social and community housing. At the CMM, we know that we have enough space to build more housing throughout the territory. By developing the territory, we must therefore promote a mix of uses,” says Massimo Iezzoni, general manager of the CMM.
In terms of vocabulary, “social housing” and “affordable housing” do not represent the same reality. If so-called affordable housing is defined as such by its price on the market and the level of effort it requires of a household to pay the rent, social housing designates a housing initiative subsidized by governments which ensures households in benefiting from spending no more than 25% of their income on rent.
Currently, social and community housing accounts for approximately 5% of all housing in Greater Montreal, according to the CMM.
Result: 30,000 households wait on waiting lists to obtain housing in a low-cost housing (HLM), but no new public HLM has been built since 1994.
But social housing needs are not concentrated in metropolitan France. “In Montreal, 148,000 households need affordable housing, but the needs are found everywhere in the territory of the CMM,” says Massimo Iezzoni. We also have significant social housing needs on the North Shore and the South Shore. In Laval, 12,400 households need affordable housing. In Longueuil, it’s 15,700 households. This is an important issue that needs to be addressed. »
In its Metropolitan Declaration for Housing Affordability, adopted in December 2021, the CMM aims for the construction of at least 3,000 social housing units per year on the territory of Greater Montreal. It also aims to support municipalities and public or parapublic organizations so that at least 9,000 properties and affordable housing units are made available to the population. In addition, we want to rehabilitate the HLMs in Greater Montreal that are currently barricaded, and accelerate the necessary renovations.
Current programs and projects
For the past 25 years, AccèsLogis has been the only program allowing the delivery of social and community housing. However, according to the CMM, the underfunding of this program has led to poor delivery in recent years.
At the end of 2020, the Rapid Housing Creation Initiative, deployed as part of the National Housing Strategy, secured the financing or co-financing of apartments with AccèsLogis. Last February, the Quebec Affordable Housing Program was set up by the Société d’habitation du Québec. As of June 29, 2022, 41 projects have already been selected, representing approximately 1,723 doors.
All the cities of the CMM have made a commitment to build social housing, and some projects are starting up. These include a new housing cooperative whose construction began in May in the borough of Saint-Laurent, and which will include 169 social and affordable housing units. This project is funded by the governments of Quebec and Canada, as well as by the City of Montreal and all the municipalities of the CMM.
In Laval, we renewed the Val-Martin complex, a complex built in the 1950s that had to be demolished a few years ago due to unsanitary problems. The 124 apartments were replaced with new ones thanks to federal funds, among other things, and 160 new units were built thanks to AccèsLogis.
Inclusion rules
To increase the supply of social or affordable housing and promote diversity, a municipality can also adopt an inclusion by-law. “If you want to determine the type of dwellings in a property, you can have this type of regulation that determines the type of households that would be part of a real estate project.
Montreal currently does. The CMM has prepared a guide to this effect, which municipalities can use. The PMAD principle [Plan métropolitain d’aménagement et de développement], is to ensure diversity in housing, but determination comes with each municipal by-law. »
“Right now, cities are asking the government to create even more programs, because they are there,” says Stéphane Pineault, Executive Coordinator of Policies, Interventions and Development at the CMM. The cities are already taking part in the programs set up, but each year, we find that this is not enough to meet the demand. Cities are turning to other approaches, such as buying companies, cooperatives, field banks. But the sinews of war is still the government subsidy that will allow the projects to be carried out. To make social housing for low-income tenants, it takes state aid. »
30,000 This is the number of households waiting on waiting lists to obtain housing in a HLM, but no new public HLM has been built since 1994.
For the past 25 years, AccèsLogis has been the only program allowing the delivery of social and community housing