The summer wish list of most Quebec households looks the same year after year: choosing the next vacation destination, getting out your beach bag, decorating your backyard or balcony, enjoying good meals cooked on the barbecue, all this while bathing in sunscreen.
But for too many low-income Quebec households, including more and more families, the one and only wish is to hope to be able to live in decent housing. One month after the 1er July, the signatories of this text wish to remind our public decision-makers what community and social housing is for: to offer those who need it a home in a healthy and safe living environment.
For 50 years, developers and managers of community and social housing have acquired incomparable experience and solid expertise in their field. More than ever, their daily actions contribute to the fight against socio-economic inequalities. Even today, they support 190,000 low-income and modest-income households established in all regions of Quebec.
The managers, administrators and staff of co-operatives, housing authorities and non-profit organizations have dedicated themselves for no less than half a century to ensuring that an ever-increasing number of citizens are decently housed in healthy and safe living environments. Like education, health or social services professionals working with vulnerable populations, these social and community housing experts support thousands of Quebec households each year.
To date, the value of the buildings owned and managed by these organizations is estimated at more than $20 billion. These real estate assets were financed by public funds from all levels of government. It goes without saying that today’s governments have a responsibility to ensure the sustainability of these investments by continuing the work begun by their predecessors and by remaining active partners in community and social housing renovation and construction projects.
Who today would think of abandoning their home built by their hands without doing anything to ensure its sustainability? Who would think today of abandoning the support offered to loved ones in need so that they avoid precarious situations, or even homelessness?
The societal choice made 50 years ago, namely to invest in community and social housing by setting up the financing required to support low-income or vulnerable tenants, today makes it possible to support these some 190,000 households. . This collective decision largely contributes to preventing and even reducing homelessness, to providing parents with a housing structure allowing their children to persevere in their schooling, and to maintaining residential stability for seniors.
Today, we all have an interest in maintaining these public gains by protecting our collective housing stock, by adequately funding the development of new community and social housing and by simplifying the procedures and administrative procedures that make the progress of these projects more difficult.
The issue of adequate funding for community and social housing is directly linked to the fate of thousands of households in Quebec. Not only does chronic underfunding contribute to the increase in homelessness and to a deterioration in the residential stability of a large number of young families and independent seniors, but it also certainly diminishes all the efforts undertaken in the fight against poverty.
In addition, the community support provided to these people, whose funding will benefit from being increased, eases the pressure on our health and social services. It also facilitates support for immigrant families in their new living environment.
Quebec society must renew its collective commitment to provide a roof for everyone. Organizations in the community and social housing sector are reiterating today their commitment to put their expertise and know-how to good use for the benefit of low-income or modest-income Quebecers.
What will be the commitments of political parties in relation to housing issues in Quebec? In order to know them, the main leaders of the political parties running in the next elections have been invited to an electoral debate on 13th September next, within the framework of the 8e RQOH Colloquium.
*André Castonguay, Executive Director, Quebec Network of Housing NPOs (RQOH), Anne Demers, Executive Director, Regroupement des offices d’habitation du Québec (ROHQ), Yves Dubé, President, Federation of Low-Rent Housing Tenants of Quebec (FLHLMQ), Ambroise Henry, President, Association of Technical Resource Groups of Quebec (AGRTQ), Véronique Laflamme, Spokesperson, Popular Action Front in Urban Redevelopment (FRAPRU), Sandra Turgeon, Executive Director, Confederation of Cooperatives d’habitation du Québec (CQCH)