In Drummondville, the housing crisis is hitting like never before, four months after the 1er July. This year, more than 660 households contacted the emergency relocation services of the local housing office, barely 200 fewer than in Montreal, a city 20 times more populous.
“We expected it to be worse than last year, but never at this height. »Since 1er July, at the Drummond Housing Office (OHD), the phone keeps ringing. On the other side of a plexiglass, the organization’s executive director, David Bélanger, found half an hour in his day to speak to the To have to. He will have to quickly get back to his files: at the beginning of November, the consequences of the traditional moving day are still shaking the small town of Center-du-Québec.
“It’s very intense. This summer, it’s been crazy weeks, ”he says.
In the days leading up to the first day of July, dozens of tenants contacted the OHD. Among the households registered with its help service, approximately 70 found themselves without a lease in 1er July. They were sent to friends, family members, or to hotel rooms.
In Montreal, in a city of two million inhabitants, the number of supported households that did not have a lease on that day was 130. In proportion to the population, about ten times more Drummondville residents than Montrealers. are found caught in this situation mid-year.
And between the 1er July and October, the number of people supported by the assistance service of the Office de Drummondville almost doubled. “It is no longer the 1er July. It’s October, November, December… ”, notes Mélanie Landry, social worker at the OHD.
As of mid-October, the Office was still in contact with more than 120 households. In Montreal, this number had fallen to below the 80 mark.
“Price abuse”
Patricia Gamelin has experienced the shortage of rental units in Drummondville firsthand. Affected by several neurological disorders, the Drummondville resident was forced to find accommodation at the beginning of the year because she could no longer live on the second floor of her block. Without the help of the emergency services, “I would have been in the tuesday She says bluntly.
Located on the ground floor of a small apartment building in the north of the city, Mme Gamelin considers herself lucky. The little two-and-a-half that she was entrusted with has door frames wide enough for her to pass through with her walker. And the recent flooding she experienced in the living room didn’t do too much damage. She and her two cats have found a home there; it was the priority, she tells the To have to.
“Of course, if you need a spa, you’re not in the right place,” laughs the tenant. Today, Mme Gamelin pays almost as much for her emergency accommodation as for the four and a half she previously lived.
“It’s difficult to have affordable rents,” she observes. I have a friend who has traveled to Laval. She tells me that if she leaves, she doesn’t want to come to Drummond because the rents are too expensive. “
“There is an abuse of price,” she sums up.
Kim Mailloux-Parent has “lived in Drummond for almost all [sa] life “. Never had she experienced the shortage of rental space so closely. When a fire broke out inside her apartment, she quickly had to turn to emergency help.
“When I started doing my research, I saw that the prices had really changed a lot. Me alone, I could not afford them, ”suggests the one who managed to find a unit in a low-rent apartment for the fall by calling the OHD.
“I have anxiety issues. It didn’t help me. I was really overwhelmed by events, ”she continues.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation estimates that in 2020, the average rent in Drummondville was around $ 670. “We see that there are a lot of housing starts, but these are housing that is not affordable. It’s 700, 800, 900, 1000 dollars a month, ”analyzes David Bélanger.
At the height of the crisis, this summer, Mélanie Landry worked at times 80 hours a week. On the ground, the vulnerability of tenants was more visible than ever, she notes.
“I’m going to see depressions, people with negative thoughts,” she says.
To emerge from its precarious rental situation, the City of Drummondville has made a commitment to build 300 social housing units by 2027. But it has “accumulated a delay”, argues David Bélanger. Over the same period, he believes, it will be necessary to build double the units promised.
In the meantime, population growth is putting a lot of pressure on community organizations, adds Mr. Bélanger. So much so that for the first time in several years, Drummond experienced visible homelessness.
“If we go back two years, to Drummondville, yes, we had homelessness, but never that,” he adds. There, we really end up with roaming on the park benches. “