Excluded, forced to leave housing or to stay in some that are unsuitable or no longer suitable: tenants aged 65 and over are at risk of socio-territorial exclusion, a problem not only present in the Montreal metropolis, but also in the regions . And public policies aimed at protecting senior tenants are insufficient, according to a team of researchers who will participate in the conference The socio-territorial exclusion of elderly tenants during the 91e Acfas Congress.
“What we wanted to explore is how the private rental housing market, in its different components and its different aspects during a period of housing crisis, favored the exclusion of seniors,” explains Hélène Bélanger, professor in the Department of urban and tourism studies from the University of Quebec in Montreal, member of the Collective for Research and Action on Habitat (CRACH) and co-responsible for the conference.
“Often, when we think about seniors, there is this kind of myth according to which the choice is to age at home or to go to a nice RPA [résidence privée pour aînés]. The idea is also to bring a vision. There is a large category of seniors who have no residential choices and who experience forced mobility or immobility,” raises Julien Simard, social gerontologist also part of CRACH, postdoctoral fellow at the Montreal Research Center on Inequalities. social issues, discrimination and alternative citizenship practices and also co-responsible for the conference.
“A conjunction of risk factors” explains the socio-territorial exclusion of elderly tenants, explains Mr. Simard. He names in particular the long duration of occupancy of rental accommodation, the unavailability of home health care and isolation. These are dynamics that are not unique to Montreal, according to research conducted by Julien Simard and Hélène Bélanger. “We compared Montreal, Saint-Jérôme and Longueuil to see that. We are not only interested in neighborhoods and territories, but also in how conflicts and negotiations take place with owners. The dynamics are pretty much the same everywhere,” specifies Mr. Simard.
Lack of “structuring” policies
Although there are public policies in place aimed at keeping seniors in their homes, such as article 1959.1 protecting senior tenants from repossession or eviction if they have lived there for 10 years or more with a low income, they are not “structuring”, according to the two researchers. “There is no money to spend. It’s just a bunch of what cities do and they put it into a policy. It’s political communication more than structuring measures,” maintains Julien Simard.
What justifies this lack of structuring measures? From an urban planning perspective, the socio-territorial exclusion of elderly tenants “is a problem that is a little under the radar, even if we talk about it more and more. […] For the structure of housing in Quebec and Canada, we think that the rental market will meet the needs of most tenants, except those of the most deprived, and we do not really ask the question of what is really happening in the private rental market, especially in a crisis situation,” believes Hélène Bélanger.
Limited power
The blind spot around the “residential stability” of senior tenants, the aging of the population, the state’s disengagement from health care, the lack of community support, then “gentrification, real estate speculation… All of this together gives us the situation we are in,” says Mr. Simard. “We saw the problem coming. It’s just that there were no structuring measures,” he adds.
“On the municipal side, we are trying to find solutions,” recognizes Hélène Bélanger. Even if the two experts highlight the contribution of municipalities in trying to counter the socio-territorial exclusion of elderly tenants, they point out that they are limited in their field of action since they cannot legislate in terms of the Civil Code . They are also hampered by their financial resources. “In the absence of more generous or more open and flexible programs on the provincial side with transfers to municipalities, they are quite limited, despite their attempts. Even if the federal government transfers money, it requires bilateral agreements, which can take a long time to negotiate. […] The question of housing is particularly difficult politically in Quebec,” summarizes M.me Bélanger.
This content was produced by the Special Publications team at Duty, relating to marketing. The writing of the Duty did not take part.