The official opposition to the City of Montreal, Ensemble Montreal, judges that the record in housing of the Plante administration is “outright lies”.
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“The reality is really not what the administration is announcing. It’s dishonest and it’s downright lying to the people of Montreal,” said opposition leader Aref Salem.
He was reacting to our investigation into the results of the 12,000 housing strategy of the administration of Mayor Valérie Plante.
According to government figures, more than 13,000 social and affordable housing units have been built. But we discovered that only 4,237 new homes were built.
“It’s an administration that is very good in communication operations and slogans,” says Salem.
Housing under construction
Hundreds of homes that never saw the light of day were counted in the administration’s balance sheet, as were thousands of others that are still under construction and whose future is uncertain.
“It’s very worrying and it shows that this administration has always played with numbers. In 2019, the Auditor General even denounced this way of accounting for forecasts and commitments, recalls the Leader of the Opposition.
Following our investigation, the City had to correct its balance sheet and remove nearly 230 unrealized dwellings.
He says he hopes the Auditor General will look into the file “in more depth”.
According to Mr. Salem, the City should not count as it did grants of access to ownership for existing housing in its balance sheet.
“We subsidize the retention in town of a family that wants to buy in Montreal. We are not making home ownership more affordable. We are far from social housing. To see that these figures have been put in there, it is shameful and unacceptable, ”he judges.
This subsidy notably allows new buyers or families to receive between $5,000 and $7,000 for the purchase of a condo for less than $400,000 or a plex for less than $500,000.