On Thursday, Prime Minister François Legault appointed France-Élaine Duranceau as minister responsible for housing. She already has to face many challenges, with tenants in Quebec going through the toughest and deepest housing crisis in decades. The most urgent needs are known, but the structuring solutions are long overdue. After four years of dithering, it is high time for the CAQ government to resolutely take action, which is the responsibility of the new minister, but also of the entire government.
Low- and modest-income tenant households are hard hit by the exorbitant price of available rents. In the absence of sufficient protections for tenants, abuses of the private rental market and real estate speculation are pushing more and more tenants into situations of residential insecurity, or even homelessness.
Last July, at least 600 tenant households accompanied by a support service found themselves homeless. Four months later, dozens of households still are, across Quebec, including Montreal, Drummondville, Trois-Rivières and Gatineau. Every day, FRAPRU and its members from different regions receive calls from desperate tenants who need decent housing now.
More and more people have to sleep for weeks in motels, even in their car, others are staying with relatives. Families are prisoners of their unsanitary housing, too small or too expensive for their means. Despite repeated calls from the community, the Government of Quebec is not moving, or very little.
The only response given to these households is to register on a waiting list for social housing, while the average time to obtain an HLM is more than five years in Montreal. Getting involved in setting up a non-profit organization or a housing cooperative is another option, but with the chronic underfunding of new housing, it takes at least as long.
These are real human tragedies that too many tenant households are currently experiencing, which are downright abandoned. According to the most recent data from Statistics Canada, 177,728 renter households in Quebec are in core housing need. However, this figure excludes people and families in a situation of visible or invisible homelessness, as well as all those who must swallow more than 100% of their income in rent, by saving on all their other essential needs, by going into debt or depending on their relatives.
FRAPRU has long called for a major project of 50,000 public, cooperative and non-profit housing units in five years. This includes a program for the acquisition of rental buildings allowing cities and non-profit organizations to take them out of the speculative logic. Such a possibility would help curb the erosion of the rental housing stock that is still affordable and ensure that the tenants who live there remain in their community.
We also need to build new social housing more quickly to combat the serious shortage of apartments that prevails to one degree or another in all regions. Neither the construction of private rental housing at far too high rents nor that of condominium housing will meet the needs of households looking for truly affordable housing. Only social housing can do this.
However, the 11,700 “social and affordable” housing units promised by the CAQ during the election campaign will obviously not be enough and, in addition, we still do not know the proportion that will be reserved for the cooperative and non-profit sector.
The approximately 5,000 housing units that were built under the AccèsLogis program during the CAQ’s first mandate had all been announced by previous governments, in some cases more than ten years ago. Thousands of others have still not been delivered, because the CAQ government has not funded all the necessary improvements to AccèsLogis, in place for 25 years this year. He preferred to launch a new program, the Quebec Affordable Housing Program (PHAQ), which is not adapted to the diversity of needs, which will in turn have to be improved.
The urgency of the housing situation makes it necessary to devote sufficient sums to the development of social housing, and we have ample means to do so. Just think of the millions of dollars the government is about to sacrifice with its pre-holiday checks and the tax cuts promised during the election. This is the only option to ensure a truly affordable and adequate roof for the thousands of tenant households that are already poorly housed and for people who are homeless.
Neglecting to do so also has an economic and social cost that should not be tolerated. François Legault must not only give a clear mandate to the new Minister responsible for Housing, but above all he must provide her with the necessary financial means as soon as her economic update is expected in December.