Are you comfortable at home? Or are you dreaming of moving? In the midst of a housing crisis, The duty has called for reader stories, which will be published over the summer. A retired couple invited us to their new village, in Beauce. The quest for a roof over your head can become an obstacle course.
One day, Jean Riopel and Angèle Morin got tired of wondering how long they would still have a roof over their heads. After two decades of pulling the devil by the tail, going from overpriced housing to an unsanitary semi-basement to a renovation, the retired couple took extreme measures to escape precariousness. These Montrealers decided to start a new life in a region where they could afford to buy a house. Anywhere in Quebec.
They scoured real estate sites for weeks. They ended up unearthing the rare pearl in Saint-Zacharie, a municipality of 1,684 souls located in Beauce, at the end of a long road full of valleys, five kilometers from the border with Maine.
A bargain awaited them in this isolated village: a four-bedroom house was on sale for $38,000. Almost half the average price of a new car (which was $67,259 at the end of 2023, according to Autohebdo). They negotiated it for $35,900. Thanks to a small inheritance, they were able to change the furnace, water heater, doors and windows.
The couple thanks God that they had the courage to make this radical gesture — leaving everything behind to start over from scratch in a region where they had never set foot. “We are economic refugees. Being here saved us. It was the best thing we could do,” says Jean Riopel, sitting in his kitchen in Saint-Zacharie.
Perpetual crisis
They bought their house in 2018. Before what is now called the “housing crisis.” But Jean Riopel and Angèle Morin, who have worked their entire lives for modest wages, have been living in a housing crisis for almost 20 years.
They were evicted in 2005, with their three children in shared custody, from a huge apartment for $475 a month in the Hochelaga district of Montreal. “From there, we experienced the downward spiral,” summarizes Angèle Morin.
Since then, the children have left the family nest, but the two retirees have had to struggle to find accommodation. Loss of job, bankruptcy, forced stay in a moldy semi-basement, severe depression, the couple moved multiple times – again in Hochelaga, then in Rosemont, in Saint-Félix-de-Valois and in Joliette, in Lanaudière , before their exile in Beauce.
Even after making their nest in Saint-Zacharie, Jean Riopel and Angèle Morin once again had to “change tack on a dime,” as they say here. With the cost of living skyrocketing following the COVID-19 pandemic, they struggled to make ends meet.
Last year, they sold their house to a couple from Laval. They now had to find a place to live at a reasonable price. Not easy in Saint-Zacharie, where rental apartments can be counted on the fingers of one hand (apart from the social housing).
Sunbeam
It must be believed that there is a lucky star for “economic refugees” in times of crisis: a charming accommodation has become available a five-minute walk from their house. The rent is at an unexpected price: $390 per month for this two-bedroom apartment in an upper triplex where the sun shines in all day.
“We must not overdo it if we want to have good tenants,” explains Armoza Turgeon, co-owner of the building with her sister.
She knows the state of the rental market in the region, but refuses to fuel the housing crisis, which is raging here as elsewhere. In the surrounding municipalities, apartments are listed at $1200, $1300, $1600 per month. The “accommodation for rent” or “house for sale” signs fly away in the time it takes to say so.
Jean Riopel and Angèle Morin sometimes pinch themselves when they realize how lucky they are to have finally found a cozy cocoon. The bright accommodation is tastefully decorated. Reproductions of paintings adorn the walls. A painting shows an alley in Hochelaga, as if to recall their former life. Books, CDs and vinyls compete for library shelves.
Village life
Life is good in Saint-Zacharie. The couple has made friends. All services, pharmacy, supermarket, ATM, are within walking distance. No need to wear out the 2014 Toyota Matrix. There are not many job offers in the area, but for retirees, that is not a problem.
A cooperative offers high-speed Internet, something other regions closer to major centers do not have. A peddler even delivers The duty at their door (and at the local convenience store).
“Do we miss Montreal? Not really,” says Jean Riopel. In any case, they “no longer had the means to live in the city.” They were forced into exile.
Before retiring, Jean Riopel had to travel by car, among other things for his job as a funeral director which took him from Rosemont to Saint-Laurent and LaSalle. “I was in construction and traffic all the time. Montreal is a city suffocated by automobiles. »
The “biggest sacrifice” of their exile in Beauce was moving away from their grown children, all in their thirties. Two live in Montreal, another in Drummondville. They don’t see them often, but when they do, they are happy.
They also miss cultural life. Aside from cows and trucks loaded with lumber, there aren’t many sights around Saint-Zacharie. The couple has tickets for Elisapie in Saint-Damien-de-Buckland and for Marie-Pierre Arthur at L’Anglicane de Lévis.
Oddly enough, noise is the biggest annoyance. The couple lived on the two busiest streets in the village. The houses are stuck on the sloping streets. Heavy trucks make a racket going up and down hills. Not forgetting the snowmobiles, motocrossers, Harley-Davidsons and ATVs that backfire happily.
This is the biggest inconvenience. But it’s nothing, to have a roof over your head.