The proliferation of proposals and speakers is likely to fuel the feeling of helplessness among many of our fellow citizens in the face of the housing crisis. For many, it would be enough to return to what has already worked to get out of it. For some, it would be enough to carry out another Corvée-Habitation to launch a vast mobilization. Unfortunately, history does not repeat itself, even if it can inspire us.
Quebec is not, for the moment at least, in recession. Its unemployment rate is around 4%, which places it close to the level of full employment. In addition, the number of unemployed people stands at around 185,000 (2.5 times less than in 1982), while the total number of vacant positions stands at around 215,000. If, in 1982, Quebec was experiencing a cyclical shortage of jobs, today it is struggling with a structural shortage of labor. As for interest rates, they are nothing like those of the 1980s.
In the current context, an ambitious residential construction program targeting similar affordable housing segments would undoubtedly be counterproductive. Rather than increasing the supply of affordable housing, it would be much more likely to accentuate inflationary pressures in the housing sector.
In addition, the Corvée-Habitation program had its main effect in the area of single-family homes and access to property. The current affordable housing crisis is mainly felt in the rental segments, while the need to densify urban development is essential. For this reason too, we must approach the problem differently.
Adapted objectives
What we will designate as Operation Emergency Housing must pursue objectives adapted to the current situation, including the following four:
Increase quickly the supply of affordable housing.
Avoid to accentuate inflationary pressures on the housing market.
Mobilize human and financial resources to achieve these two objectives.
Contribute to the objectives of densification of the urban territory, protection of the environment and the fight against climate change.
To achieve these ends, public authorities must first reduce the cumulative pressure that their current investment programs exert on the labor market and on the order books of companies in the construction sector. To do this, governments and municipalities must postpone some of their priorities to prioritize urgency.
By postponing or extending the timetables for certain investments seen as priorities, public decision-makers will be able to “make room” for housing emergencies. Such a strategy will make it possible to better focus capital budgets, facilitate debt management, free up human resources that would otherwise be allocated to other projects, in addition to facilitating the planning of companies whose order books would be otherwise overloaded.
It is also necessary, as part of an Emergency Housing operation, to mobilize Quebec’s large reservoirs of capital, including workers’ funds and Quebec pension funds, in compliance with their investment policies. Household savings can also be mobilized by using tax programs (TFSA, etc.).
At the same time, the Quebec government and municipalities should quickly establish land trusts, several examples of which already exist in Europe. Such trusts make it possible to exercise tighter control over land costs in the development of real estate projects — with the government and municipalities retaining formal ownership of the land and granting construction rights to developers or NPOs — and to reduce pressures inflationary pressures on housing costs, particularly in the different segments of affordable housing.
Third, especially in the case of large urban sites making it possible to significantly increase the supply of housing – such as those of the racecourse, Louvain and Lachine-Est in the case of Montreal – significant prior public investments are necessary to enable its viability. In such cases, the development of carbon-neutral energy districts, where neighboring buildings have the regulatory obligation to connect to a heat and cold distribution network operated by a central operator, makes it possible to reduce building construction costs. (who do not have to equip themselves with heating and air conditioning equipment) and reduce maintenance costs (assumed by the network operator).
By incorporating these investments into the development investments for such sites from the outset, the development of the distribution network is minimal, since it is shared with that of other underground networks. If, in addition, the buildings are designed to comply with LEED-type standards, it is possible to envisage that complete sites of this type could become positive energy territories integrated into the urban fabric of Quebec.
Several other measures can be incorporated at modest marginal costs in such true carbon-neutral eco-neighborhoods, provided they are planned from the design stage of such large-scale projects. Initiatives in urban agriculture, short circular economy circuits, collective school facilities, active mobility of people and the installation of shuttle systems linked to public transport equipment, etc. can thus be considered.
Finally, since an Emergency Housing operation must primarily target affordable rental housing, it is imperative that it be accompanied by concrete measures to ensure the financial stability and organizational sustainability of non-profit organizations and housing cooperatives. and housing offices throughout the territory of Quebec.
Such an operation would be a continuation of the culture of consultation that the Corvée-Habitation program made it possible to put in place around forty years ago. If this were the case, Quebec could once again do well in a very different context, but just as promising.