The housing crisis has been largely overshadowed since the start of the election campaign, deplore several community organizations. However, access to home ownership or affordable rental housing becomes even more difficult in the current inflationary context, they point out.
The five main political parties running in the election on 3rd October next have all made commitments in this area. They are thus waging a war of numbers by establishing various targets to develop, in various horizons, the tens of thousands of social housing units missing in the province, when there are already more than 37,000 households on the waiting lists for province-wide. They have also made commitments to facilitate access to property, in particular through tax measures.
However, the various parties have been tight-lipped since the beginning of the campaign on the housing crisis itself: it seems in particular to have been eclipsed by the impact of inflation on the wallets of Quebecers. A situation that clashes with the municipal election campaign last year, during which the theme of housing was on everyone’s lips.
“Frankly, given the scale of the crisis, it’s clear that it hasn’t been addressed enough,” says the director general of the Quebec Network of Housing NPOs, André Castonguay. The organization calls in particular for the creation of a ministry entirely dedicated to housing in order to more quickly implement concrete measures in response to the lack of housing of different sizes in Quebec. Currently, this department also includes the equally demanding Municipal Affairs department.
“We need someone who has this file in hand and who is able to do the work necessary to establish a housing policy” equipped with an action plan, underlines Mr. Castonguay. The latter also finds the commitments of the various parties on the construction of social and affordable housing imprecise. “We do not feel a big political will. »
“Housing does not seem to be a priority for the parties when, however, from Gaspé to Gatineau, the housing crisis is everywhere,” also notes the project manager at the Peter-McGill neighborhood table, Maryse Chapdelaine. “It’s been pushed under the carpet a bit, whereas if we tackled the issue of the lack of social housing, it could solve a lot of problems”, in particular by helping low-income seniors to stay longer in their homes, notes- she.
The impacts of inflation
The Association of Construction and Housing Professionals of Quebec (APCHQ) estimates at 100,000 the number of rental and residential units lacking to meet current needs in the province. A figure destined to increase at a time when the rising cost of living and construction costs are creating an “intergenerational gap” in access to property, notes the director of public affairs at the APCHQ, David Dinelle.
“If you access property, you access it with a noose around your neck,” illustrates Mr. Dinelle, who notes that mortgage payments “increase faster” than Quebecers’ incomes. Ditto for construction costs, which are growing rapidly, in Quebec as elsewhere in the country.
In this context, professor at the School of Social Work at UQAM and housing specialist Louis Gaudreau says he is “surprised” that the housing crisis has not been addressed more during the election campaign. However, “I felt that there was a certain consensus that we should increase the supply of affordable and social housing”.
The expert also raises the possibility that the leaders of the main political parties have decided to act cautiously by avoiding addressing the thorny question of the “right to housing”, in particular “everything that concerns the relationship between landlords and tenants”, both of which represent groups of potential voters.
The measures to be taken to limit the evictions of tenants or to better control the increase in rents have, for example, been essentially eclipsed by this campaign, he notes, because “there is always the risk of alienating part of its electorate by siding with the tenants”.
Joined by The duty, the office of the mayoress of Montreal, Valérie Plante, indicates that the latter “has made housing and housing central subjects in the context of her discussions with the various leaders” of political parties. “The affordability of cities is a fight that must be carried out in partnership with the next government, which must accelerate the development of social housing”, adds the cabinet, according to which “the DNA of our neighborhoods and the fate of thousands of families are in play.