Quebec is affected by an unprecedented housing crisis. Who would have thought that municipalities in Gaspésie, Côte-Nord or Abitibi-Témiscamingue would post vacancy rates below 1%?
Posted yesterday at 10:00 a.m.
Not a day goes by where the lack of housing doesn’t make the headlines. In its most recent report on the housing shortage, released on June 22, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) estimates that more than 620,000 new housing units are needed in Quebec by 2030 to restore the affordability.
Thus, to the housing shortage is added the problem of affordability also observed in all regions of Quebec, which considerably affects access to housing for many households.
The lack of rental, affordable housing and available housing has become an issue of economic interest. Indeed, the labor shortage has made the consequences of this lack of housing appear even more glaring. How to welcome new workers without being able to house them?
Thus, the dream of too many people to settle in the regions, attracted by interesting jobs and an enchanting living environment, will not come true. The same goes for the entrepreneur who sees his development projects hampered quite simply by the lack of housing for his new employees.
This is where municipal actors come into play. Successive governments have never delivered on their promises for social, community or affordable housing, showing that the national program approach does not work. For the Quebec Federation of Municipalities (FQM), it is high time to change the way things are done, to broaden our perspective to talk more about the vision and planning of our habitat on a human scale.
It is time to begin the decentralization of powers in matters of housing to the territories.
Friday, the mayors of Laval and Longueuil invited their counterparts from the 10 large cities of Quebec to take a position on the question. The FQM will be there as spokesperson for the regions, bringing together more than 1,000 local and regional member municipalities on a voluntary basis. We will explain that the housing problems arise differently in our territories and that the solutions must be adapted to this reality to concretely meet the needs.
In this regard, the FQM intends to reiterate the need to decentralize the policies and management of the programs of the Société d’habitation du Québec (SHQ), in particular to tackle the administrative complexities that hinder initiatives in this area.
In fact, housing is a concern at the municipal level and is directly linked to its land use planning responsibilities. Current mobilization and the first innovative solutions developed to date illustrate this reality.
Already, several local or regional municipalities have adopted policies or strategies to which tools to help municipalities are attached, as the Brome-Missisquoi MRC did. The MRC de Coaticook has created a housing project manager position to facilitate the implementation of projects with immediate results. The City of Victoriaville, for its part, has adopted a regulation that now allows the addition of mini-houses on the land of the properties in order to increase the supply of housing and facilitate intergenerational cohabitation.
The RCM of Rimouski-Neigette is exploring other avenues to maximize the occupation of its territory, particularly rural ones, but whose projects are unfortunately blocked by an overly restrictive application of government guidelines in land use planning.
In Gaspésie, elected municipal officials have set up a support program for the construction of rental and residential housing as well as a campaign “Building Gaspésie together, one home at a time” to meet urgent needs and increase the supply of accommodations. All of these initiatives demonstrate that the solutions exist and that they are largely local.
The current context forces us to review our ways of intervening in the communities. We must dare to be daring and adapt the interventions to the real needs of the populations in terms of housing in a coherent whole. It is therefore time to put in place solutions that are closer to the field and to deploy a real decentralization of the management of government housing programs.
Combined with knowledge of local realities, such decentralization will allow for the necessary rapid actions and results. It is therefore up to our government to carry out this decentralization so that the local and regional municipalities benefit from increased means and can act in a strengthened manner.