I always react a little negatively when I read or hear texts dealing with housing where the two adjectives “affordable” and “social” are attached. This placing side by side of two adjectives referring to really different realities runs the risk (voluntarily or not) of assimilating these two realities, which do not have much in common.
What I understand is that, when we talk about social housing, we say that this housing will cost 25% or at most 30% of the income of this tenant family. This corresponds to the percentage of income devoted to housing. No direct link to market fluctuations.
When we talk about affordable housing, we mean that this housing is sold at some 20% below the average rent presented on the rental market. We thus arrive at aberrations such as the following: rent for 4 people offered at $1750 become supposedly affordable at $1500. Do you know many families with an income of $40,000 whose 30% would afford a home for $1,500? At most $1089. Housing affordability fluctuates with the market (currently bullish and speculative) and in no way depends on the low-income family’s ability to pay.
Municipal or Quebec governments seem to have an interest in propagating this affordable/social assimilation; they thus succeed in masking their lack of attention to the growing cases of families grappling with the terrible problem of housing, yet a fundamental human right.
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