With evictions and housing repossessions which are five times more numerous in two years, the price of rents which has increased by 30% since 2010 and the extension of the blue line, can we think that the Saint-Michel district will be the next gentrified district of the metropolis? Overview with the people of the neighborhood.
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How do we define gentrification? The Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) indicates that this represents a “socio-economic transformation of an old urban district generated by the gradual arrival of a new class of residents who restore the physical environment and enhance the quality of life.”
This phenomenon has affected a large number of Montreal working-class neighborhoods such as Plateau Mont-Royal, Villeray, Verdun and even Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, thus driving up rents.
According to data from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), the average rent in the Saint-Michel district has gone from $543 to $702 since 2010, an increase of 29%. These are the studios that have increased the most in the neighborhood rental market, going from $424 to $613, an increase of 45%.
Guillaume Cyr/24 hours
Row of apartments in the François-Perrault area, near the Saint-Michel metro station
Five times more evictions and housing repossessions
The Saint-Michel Bureau Info Logement organization has identified five times more cases of evictions and housing repossessions in just two years, going from 13 cases in 2019-2020 to 60 cases for the year 2021-2022. A situation that has cause for concern for the organization’s project manager, Céline Camus, who is managing all the files alone for the moment.
According to her, the extension of the blue line brings benefits for the local population, but also some concerns about rising rents, especially in the François-Perreault sector in the south of the district. It is close to gentrified neighborhoods like Rosemont and Villeray, like the tenants of rue Pie-IX (see other text).
“When I arrived in the neighborhood, I was told that attacks on the rental stock [reprises, évictions] were less of an issue with us. We are not going to lie to each other: Saint-Michel is historically an underprivileged district that is not very attractive”, confides Céline Camus.
Guillaume Cyr/ 24 hours
Céline Camus, project manager for the Housing Info Office of Saint-Michel
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“That would have been a bit naive to believe that the gentrification does not happen in Saint-Michel”
However, this is less and less the case. Yasmine Belam, responsible for housing consultation for the Vivre Saint-Michel en santé neighborhood table, is responsible for building bridges between the various housing partners. The young woman grew up in the neighborhood before leaving it for 20 years and returning to work there.
“The neighborhood has changed a lot […] It would have been a bit naive to believe that gentrification would not happen in Saint-Michel,” judge Yasmine Belam.
The one who is of Algerian origin indicates that alternatives in social housing in the neighborhood exist, such as 14 housing cooperatives, 7 non-profit housing and 880 HLM housing, but that “the shortfall is quite immense.”
“On the other hand, while more than 30% of the population lives below the low income threshold, only 8% of tenant households have subsidized housing,” she says, citing the 2016 census.
Courtesy
Yasmine Belam, housing consultation officer for the Vivre Saint-Michel en santé neighborhood table, back in the center during a mobilization.
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“It’s a transformation that is taking place”, recognizes the mayor
The Mayor of Villeray–Saint-Michel-Parc-Extension, Laurence Lavigne Lalonde, recognizes that the neighborhood must increasingly juggle with the gentrification of the Saint-Michel district.
“To live in this area, it’s a neighborhood that has evolved a lot over many years. At the moment we really see that a transformation is taking place: new businesses, new residents and new families, ”she judges.
She said she was worried when she learned of the figures from the Bureau Info Logement. “We don’t see it in a good light. That being said, there is still something good in the sense that people are able to turn to a housing committee when they have a problem.
TOMA ICZKOVITS/QMI AGENCY
Laurence Lavigne Lalonde
Ms. Lavigne Lalonde hopes that the implementation of measures such as the purchase of land or buildings with the right of first refusal, which allows the City of Montreal to buy in priority over any other buyer in order to carry out projects , and a new fine register of rents by the city will put a stop to this phenomenon.
“We would like the Government of Quebec to do its part to support us,” she laments, insisting that the latter must invest in the construction of social housing in order to counter gentrification.