Housing crisis | Losing your HLM, a direct door to the street

Dozens of tenants are evicted each year from the housing of the Office municipal d’habitation de Montréal (OMHM), which offers affordable housing to thousands of people in the metropolis, according to data collected by The Press. As of May, 27 tenants had been evicted this year. Community workers denounce rules that are too rigid for the most vulnerable clientele, who can thus find themselves on the street.

Lila Dussault
The Press

Frederik-Xavier Duhamel
The Press

The OMHM has evicted just over 54 people per year on average since 2012, for a total of 572 tenants thrown out, including the first months of 2022.

This is relatively little, given the fact that 55,000 Montrealers live in housing managed by the organization, namely non-profit housing (HLM), affordable housing and housing under the Rent Supplement Program. “Eviction is exceptional and is certainly our last resort,” assures Mathieu Vachon, director of the OMHM’s communications department.

The main reasons for eviction are non-payment of rent, noise and behavior that disturbs other tenants, and sanitation problems or refusal to cooperate in the extermination of vermin, says Mr. Vachon.

Before applying to the Administrative Housing Tribunal to evict a tenant, “an employee communicates with the tenant, by telephone, in writing or in person (most often by all these means), to advise of the non-payment or behavior to be corrected”, explains the spokesperson. “The employee offers means and solutions to rectify the situation,” he continues, including payment agreements and support from external resources from the health network or the community for behavioral problems.

“The social support team is doing everything it can to avoid evictions and is drawing up very elaborate plans to get there,” concludes Mr. Vachon.

Never mind, “the penalties that apply to Mr. or Mrs. Everybody who does not have multiple stakes are the same that are applied to a homeless person, so it is sure that it lacks fairness”, denounces Annie Savage, director of the Network of assistance to the alone and itinerant people of Montreal (RAPSIM).

“Our members have told us of cases of people who, following an eviction by the OMHM, will be deprived of subsidized housing for a period of up to 10 years. It is then a return to the street almost guaranteed, ”continues M^me Savage.

This is also what Véronique Laflamme, spokesperson for the Popular Action Front in Urban Redevelopment (FRAPRU) believes. “When you no longer have access to subsidies and you find yourself in a private market where housing is overpriced, you end up with nothing,” she sighs. “You can’t abandon people because they haven’t paid their rent. »

Push for a “human” approach

A tenant with a debt to the OMHM only sees it canceled after 10 years, after which he can submit a new application for low-rent housing. “In the case of non-payment or disturbance of enjoyment of the premises caused to the other tenants of the building by the tenant or eviction, the maximum period of inadmissibility is three years”, specifies Mr. Vachon, of the OMHM.

In 2020, this period of ineligibility has been reduced from five years to three years, explains Robert Pilon, coordinator of the Federation of tenants of low-cost housing in Quebec (FLHLMQ). A decision that followed a symposium on evictions, the very first in the history of HLM in Quebec.

Since the symposium, the FLHLMQ has encouraged its members to advocate for municipal housing offices in the province to adopt more “humane” approaches in the event of non-payment of rent. For example, that they take the time to contact tenants who are late, rather than simply summoning them to court.

This situation had been raised during the symposium by the FLHLMQ, and since then, an improvement has been observed in a large number of municipal housing offices, estimates Mr. Pilon. “But not everywhere. »