Every Tuesday, The duty offers a space to the creators of a periodical. This week, we offer you a text published in L.Q.issue 192 (Spring 2024).
“It is difficult to measure the extent to which […] an egalitarian and peaceful atmosphere would contribute to our happiness. It is difficult to understand the importance, for one’s own mental comfort, not only of being well housed oneself, but of knowing that others are. » – Mona Chollet, At home
Whether we are in a house or an apartment, whether it belongs to us or not, this place where we return, which we leave knowing that we will return, is the one where our intimacy is defined and experienced, which is private to us: we eat there, sleep, receive friends, laugh, cry, love, build and preserve memories.
It can also be the place in which our shame, our despair, our loneliness are expressed. We can only hope that it is synonymous with security, a sort of rare certainty: not only having a roof over one’s head, but that it is solid and has adequate support against — I will be excused this game of words — the bad weather of life. Because feeling fragile, precarious, implies a constant trembling inside yourself when you have to be able to place yourself on your floor, between your four walls. Sheltered.
— “Cases of forced evictions of tenants increased by 132% in Quebec in 2023 compared to 2022 data…”
— “Several socio-economic indicators […] However, it is possible to establish the number of forced evictions in Quebec at several tens of thousands per year. »
— “What is very notable in the last year is that renovictions and undue pressure, tactics which are illegal, have progressed much more significantly. » (Radio-Canada, December 12, 2023).
“Undue pressure”. These are two words that contain several others: heating cuts, in winter, repeatedly; bailiff letters sent to tenants for everything and nothing; not responding to calls and emails when there are problems in the apartment; carrying out noisy renovations in common areas for very long periods — without ensuring that the health of tenants is protected; threaten them to raise the rent disproportionately and do so; sending invoices for repairs to tenants, when they should be paid by the landlord; trying to antagonize the tenants of a building among themselves; remind them that they are not at home; etc.
This is particularly how a tremor is established, that worry takes place, that returning and being at home becomes a worry coupled with the constant fear of being dispossessed. And today, especially, not being able to find decent rehousing.
Possess: from Latin possess“to be possessor”, itself composed from pots“who can, mighty”, and sedere, “to be seated, to remain”. (Dictionary of the French Academy).
I wonder what the people who own the buildings, the roots and the security of the people see. Perhaps some of them misunderstand their service offering, perhaps we should explain to them that the object of their monthly transactions can only be reduced to square meters, materials, empty space. That we cannot use violence and put undue pressure on people’s lives, their rest, their calm.
Housing is not a good like any other. Beyond rights and obligations, profitability, it is a space of meaning, of refuges, of rituals, of links. And this does not seem to me to be able to agree with the feeling of omnipotence which often comes with the fact of “possessing” and which overcomes the minimum consideration towards others: “I possess therefore I can, and I do not have to take into account anyone’s needs except my own. »
This “I” can modify these places to which it almost never comes, even though they are the “everyday” place of many, disturbing without worrying or even apologizing for it. Taking care to discuss, to probe, to validate does not have to be part of the preferred attitudes. The tenant is reduced to the same status as the housing object, perhaps it even has less value since it can be exchanged, replaced.
They will tell me that tenants have rights, that they are kings and queens, that the system is made for them, for them. I will say that I don’t really know, that we should not underestimate the vulnerability we find ourselves in when we fear reprisals, an increase in inconvenience, the meanderings of the Administrative Housing Tribunal. When we don’t know where we could go, if it will be better, but maybe worse.
I wonder: in which ear should we speak so that Quebecers can live without worrying?
Small note: obviously, the following words do not apply to everyone: there are owners and managers with questionable practices and others who show benevolence. Talking about some does not ignore the existence of others and does not deny the fact that there are difficult tenants.
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