Montreal plans to opt for temporary modular housing to house people experiencing homelessness. This method, which helps speed up the construction of housing, is not new since several Canadian cities, including Vancouver and Toronto, have already experimented with it. However, they have encountered several pitfalls.
The Office municipal d’habitation de Montréal (OMHM) launched a call for tenders last week to acquire 60 modular housing units that will be spread across two sites, the location of which has yet to be determined, starting in March 2025. The project also includes support services for residents with financial assistance from Québec.
The formula has been applied elsewhere. In Vancouver, for example, the city launched a temporary modular housing program in 2017 to get homeless people off the streets. The prefabricated units, which feature private bathrooms and kitchenettes, have been installed at several sites across the city.
The program is very popular, says Devin O’Leary, a project manager at the Carnegie Housing Project in Vancouver. “People who live in these buildings love them and prefer them to rooming houses that have dilapidated shared bathrooms and kitchens,” he says.
Not so temporary accommodations
The advantage of modular housing is how quickly it can be installed, Vancouver City Councillor Rebecca Bligh said in an interview with THE Duty. According to her, from design to construction, it only takes about four months. Vancouver currently has about 600 such apartments on 11 sites. These projects were carried out with financial assistance from the provincial government.
The city has still faced many challenges. Several projects have met with opposition from the neighborhood. “There have been strong objections, but it hasn’t really translated into an increase in violence, theft or anything that the neighbors were afraid of as negative impacts,” assures the elected official.
But above all, the housing that was originally supposed to be temporary is ultimately not as temporary as anticipated. Last year, the City had to dismantle a building containing 98 modular housing units because the time had come to vacate the private land on which it was installed in order to make way for a new construction. An opposition councillor even tabled a motion at the city council to request that the leases be extended so that such a scenario would not happen again, but the majority rejected the proposal.
And moving some of the multi-storey housing units was deemed very costly, leading several elected officials to say that it might be better to invest the money in permanent housing.
Rebecca Bligh admits that there is a lot of pressure on elected officials because dismantling temporary housing is no small task. “The challenge is that once people are settled in and stable, it’s hard to move them and it’s politically unpopular not to continue a lease,” she explains.
A bill that swells
Cities can’t do it alone, she says. In British Columbia, the modular housing program was taken over by BC Housing, a government agency, she points out. In recent years, several projects have also emerged in other municipalities. “It’s not a magic solution. It’s a Band-Aid, and the priority should be to build permanent housing,” says Rebecca Bligh.
The City of Toronto also launched a modular housing program to provide shelter for people experiencing homelessness. These homes may be less expensive than traditional apartments, but they are not immune to cost overruns. The City of Toronto’s Auditor General has noted this. In a June 2023 report, he noted that the 275 units built under the program launched in 2020 had cost overruns of 63 per cent, with a total bill of $85 million, instead of $52 million.
And one of the projects launched in 2021 ran into opposition from the neighborhood, to the point that the case ended up in court. However, in January, the Court ruled in favor of the City, which will finally be able to move forward with its 60-unit housing project in the Willowdale neighborhood.
For its part, Peterborough, Ontario, has opted for individual cottages with a kitchenette and a bathroom.
A stepping stone to housing
Montreal has assured that it will take into account the neighbourhood to avoid problems of cohabitation, in order to avoid reliving the problems encountered by the Benoît-Labre house. But unlike other cities like Vancouver and Toronto, which have favoured complete housing, Montreal is talking about a model built on wheels with several bedrooms and separate blocks for community activities and health infrastructure.
Does this mean that residents will have to go outside to use the bathroom or take a shower, regardless of the season? “We’ll see what the market has to offer,” says Robert Beaudry, who is responsible for urban planning and homelessness on the executive committee. “Maybe there will be a possibility of putting a kitchenette in the facilities.” He believes that choosing single-storey trailers will make it easier to move the modules to other sites if necessary.
The elected official maintains that the City will keep in mind the temporary aspect of these facilities, the length of stay of future residents being estimated at two years on average. “We want to avoid this being a situation that lasts because it is really a springboard to housing. But it also depends on the effectiveness of the various levels of government in accelerating the development of social and affordable housing.”
“On paper, modular housing is a good idea,” says Carolyne Grimard, a professor at the Université de Montréal’s School of Social Work, emphasizing the importance of offering services adapted to tenants. “We have no choice. The system is cracking everywhere. We have difficult winter conditions sometimes, so we have to come up with solutions.” But according to her, it is important to invest massively in social housing, otherwise, in ten years, cities will find themselves in the same position.
Several organizations welcomed the city’s announcement. However, some precautions will have to be taken, warns Hannah Brais, head of research at the Old Brewery Mission. She notes that regulatory requirements in some boroughs could drive up the cost of projects. “There have been problems elsewhere, but maybe if we prevent these issues, it’s possible that things will go better here.”