(Montreal) “Did it go well 1er July 2021? Yes. Well, it’s going to be fine too on 1er July 2023, ”said Prime Minister François Legault, Thursday at the Blue Room, during an exchange with the parliamentary leader of Québec solidaire (QS), Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois. A statement that does not pass for opposition parties and community organizations.
“François Legault puts his head in the sand. This prime minister has been disconnected from the reality of the housing crisis from the start, ”reacted Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois in an interview.
The parliamentary leader of QS had questioned the prime minister nearly 50 days before 1er July, asking him to name “a concrete action, just one, that he will take in the next year to limit the explosion of rents in Quebec”.
To which Mr. Legault replied: “Was it really the 1er July 2022? Yes. Did it go well 1er July 2021? Yes. Well, it’s going to be fine too on 1er July 2023. We are taking measures so that everyone has a place to stay. So that is very clear”.
Words to which QS does not adhere. “Even people who find an apartment, it doesn’t mean they find an apartment at a reasonable price, it doesn’t mean they find an apartment that meets their needs. There are more and more people in Quebec who are crammed into apartments that are too small for them, or too expensive for them,” said Mr. Nadeau-Dubois on the phone.
Joël Arsenau, spokesperson for the Parti Québécois in matters of housing, also deplores the comments of Mr. Legault. “I have great difficulty understanding how the Prime Minister can be so poorly informed of the situation, when some of his ministers have put in place measures, admittedly unsatisfactory, precisely to try to alleviate the crisis. Then today, to say that the last two years have been good, I am truly perplexed, ”he said in an interview.
“It does not bode very well when a government like that seems to be disconnected, or to deny the reality that is lived by thousands of families, and it is not only in urban areas”, he added, inviting the government to take measures such as the abolition of clause F on leases, which allows landlords, during the five years following the construction of a new building, to increase the rent without taking into account the recommendations of the Tribunal housing administration.
“I wonder what 1er July the Prime Minister lived,” said Virginie Dufour, Quebec Liberal Party spokesperson for municipal affairs and housing. Rather, she says she sees the coming moving period “with great concern”.
“The lower the vacancy rate, the fewer options there are for families to relocate, and there we are in rates like we have never seen,” said Ms.me From the oven. We add to that all the people who have suffered evictions in recent months. »
“It’s worse than last year”
For the Popular Action Front in Urban Redevelopment (FRAPRU), the 1er July are far from going well.
“In recent years, we have seen the length of time for which tenant households needed temporary accommodation increase,” said FRAPRU spokesperson Véronique Laflamme. Last year, the organization identified 600 tenant households accompanied by an assistance service who found themselves without a lease on 1er July in Quebec.
“We noted last year that two months after the 1er July, there were still a few hundred tenant households that were homeless. So, we see that the 1er July are getting harder and harder, and the time period for people to call for help, and for people to need help, is getting longer,” Ms.me The flame.
Guillaume Dostaler, coordinator of Entraide Logement Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, reports the same scenario. “It’s worse than last year, which was worse than the year before, which was worse than the year before. It’s going to be even worse this year, that seems pretty clear to me,” he said.
According to the latest rental market report from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), published in January 2023, the housing vacancy rate in Montreal has fallen from 3.7% to 2.3%. And it is even lower when it comes to affordable housing. The vacancy rate for apartments with rents of around $1,000 per month or less is 1%.
“The few accommodations available are very expensive. We are closely monitoring the situation, but for the moment we have the impression that it will be as difficult as it has been in recent years for Montreal tenants, ”said the FRAPRU spokesperson. Véronique Laflamme affirms that the scarcity of housing is increasingly felt outside Montreal, in cities like Trois-Rivières and Sherbrooke, as well as in certain municipalities of Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean.
The press attaché to the Minister of Housing, France-Élaine Duranceau, reacted in writing by emphasizing that “this year, an overall budget of 5.8 million is allocated to meet the pressing needs of households homeless, this is an increase of 3 million compared to the previous year”, and that “the government will support municipalities that wish to help households on their territory by implementing measures such as the temporary accommodation or storage of movable property”.
This dispatch was produced with financial assistance from the Meta Exchange and The Canadian Press for News.