Quebec is currently experiencing one of the most complex housing crises in its history. According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), there is a shortage of 600,000 apartments in the province to ensure accessibility to housing.
Added to this shortage is the cost of housing, which is increasing much faster than household income. In 2023, the increase in average rent reached a record high of 8% due to strong demand, even though the Administrative Housing Tribunal recommends limiting the latter to 4%.
François Saillant saw crises unfold during the 38 years he spent as coordinator and spokesperson for the Popular Action Front in Urban Redevelopment (FRAPRU), a national group for the defense and promotion of law. housing made up of 160 organizations from all corners of Quebec.
Although he ended up in this cause somewhat by chance, he remembers with emotion the few years during which he lived in “a slum”, in a working-class neighborhood of Quebec, when he was only four or five years. “We could hear rats walking around the walls and ceilings at night, and every time the neighbor downstairs would scream because she saw one. »
Despite setbacks, changes in government, political inaction or general indifference, he never gave up or looked away. “It starts from a deep conviction that the right to housing is something important in itself, which has repercussions on a multitude of other fundamental rights, such as the right to education, the right to health and even, ultimately, the right to life,” he tells us.
With the test In the street. A history of FRAPRU and the struggles for housing in Quebecthe long-time activist looks back on the journey of this group which managed, despite modest means, to influence certain public policies, to avoid major setbacks and to carry the message of the coming catastrophe.
Housing committees at FRAPRU
Founded in 1978, FRAPRU emerged from the first citizen committees born in the 1960s and 1970s in reaction to federal programs that stimulate urban renovations, with the objective of eliminating slums and transforming dilapidated and unsanitary neighborhoods. “In fact, they [ces rénovations] above all allow large cities to adapt to the needs and realities of modern capitalism with the construction of government or private buildings, highway infrastructure, hotel complexes, entertainment centers, etc. », writes François Saillant.
“This gave rise to a multitude of demolitions,” explains the trained journalist. In all major cities, homes and sometimes entire neighborhoods have disappeared. In Montreal alone, between 1957 and 1974, 28,000 homes were destroyed. Urban renewal fueled speculation, leading to expropriation attempts and, when that didn’t work, arson. » It was in this context that the first HLMs were built. “Often, people were moved to the field, very far from their living environment. »
Then, from the mid-1970s, large-scale demolitions gradually gave way to neighborhood improvement programs (PAQ) financed in around forty municipalities in Quebec, in order to allow the development of parks and spaces greenfields, repairs to public infrastructure and subsidies for home renovations. Rising rents are forcing many households to change neighborhoods. From then on, citizen committees will organize a provincial conference focusing exclusively on the PAQ, from which FRAPRU will be born.
The sequel takes on the appearance of the game Snakes and Ladders, being just as marked in winnings as in failures. “The withdrawal of the federal government in the early 1990s was a major blow,” recalls François Saillant. After a significant cut in budgets for affordable housing, the Mulroney government decided to completely withdraw from funding new social housing from 1994; a measure maintained by his successor, Jean Chrétien. In Quebec, the development of HLM is coming to an end and the construction of housing cooperatives and non-profit organizations is greatly threatened.
“In 2021, FRAPRU estimated at 80,000 the number of social housing units that would have been built in the province if Ottawa had kept the same objectives as at the end of the 1980s. 80,000! We would not be in the same situation today if we had this housing. »
Significant gains
Among the organization’s great victories, François Saillant notes the creation of AccèsLogis in 1997, which will allow social housing to begin to develop sustainably in the province. FRAPRU also succeeded, at the cost of multiple struggles, in maintaining rents in HLMs at 25% of tenants’ income, in addition to having contributed to avoiding the enforcement of the seizure of social assistance checks, notably thanks to a reprimand from the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights addressed to Quebec in 2004.
Today, even if he is no longer directly involved in FRAPRU, the activist continues to closely follow the housing issue. For him, the results of the Legault government are “disastrous” to say the least. “As early as the electoral campaign, he committed to completing the construction of social housing already announced in AccèsLogis by previous governments, without planning other housing. The budget he allocated for this promise was clearly insufficient. Of the approximately 16,000 promised housing units, only a third were delivered during his second election as Prime Minister of Quebec, in 2022. With Bill 31 and the question of the transfer of leases, he deprived tenants one of the only ways to slow the rise in rents. And what about the appointment of France-Élaine Duranceau to the Ministry of Housing? » he says, rolling his eyes.
Are we today seeing a trivialization of the housing crisis? “We are certainly experiencing a diversion of the debate. Immigration is a debate that must be conducted in an informed and respectful manner. But it is not true that it is the only cause or even the main cause of the housing crisis. There are a multitude of factors, including rising interest rates and the cost of building materials, labor shortages and the fact that the market is controlled by increasingly economic and financial interests. taller. »
To improve the situation, François Saillant considers it necessary to adopt a policy of access to housing which intervenes on these different aspects. “The question of social housing should be central, because housing must escape the logic of the product. We need the means to undertake comprehensive reforms, and quickly, because what the past teaches us is that what we do not do now will generate much greater costs later. It is not necessary to wait. »