Mr. Premier, we join our voices with the builders of social and community housing and hope that the housing crisis will be added to the priorities of the Government of Quebec. During the inaugural speech of the new parliamentary session, you only used the word “housing” twice to underline that its outbidding contributes very strongly to the increase in the cost of living.
But nothing more about the housing crisis, which affects all sectors of activity, all regions, all employers looking for workers and, above all, which weakens the social fabric of our communities.
While you are calling for solidarity to bring about significant changes to our society and to project ourselves into the future, it is impossible for us to imagine achieving “social cohesion” if several hundreds of thousands of families in Quebec are forced to rent overpriced, unsanitary or inadequate housing. Already, before the pandemic, 244,120 households suffered from it, and this number greatly increased during the pandemic.
We have talked a lot about the health problems that arise from being too close, the inability to eat properly, sometimes having to overcome architectural barriers that make everyday life complex, etc. The AccèsLogis program was geared more towards the most disadvantaged in our society, towards customers with special needs. However, the housing problem is spreading to the middle class of Quebec. We are talking about affordable housing, but for whom? The price of rents is racing. Already in 2020, according to figures from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, in Greater Montreal for example, the average rent was up 4.2% compared to the previous year – its biggest increase since 17 years. You want to increase the average salary in Quebec. Will income really be able to keep pace with the acceleration in rent increases year after year? Rising housing starts alone will not be enough to reverse the trend.
To resolve the housing crisis on a lasting basis, the solution must include a complementary mode of housing that escapes the mere speculative logic.
Large metropolises have a significant portion of their population living in affordable housing for all and therefore outside the private market. The example of Vienna was recently exposed in our media, where 60% of the population, with different incomes, live in non-profit housing, in adequate apartments, for a price which allows a good quality of life. On average, 7,000 homes are built there each year, protected from speculation for a better future.
To meet current needs, Quebec has long had its social, community and cooperative housing model which is functional, but which is sluggish for lack of adequate funding. For example, members of the Association of Technical Resource Groups of Quebec currently have 180 projects totaling 10,000 housing units that need immediate funding. The people of Quebec need your government to fund more alternative housing models. Look at the alternatives to private housing, the models of housing cooperatives for families, individuals and seniors, those of students that the UTILE group is developing in university towns, housing for the elderly and mainly produced by the Network housing NPOs, SOLIDES housing in Montérégie, SHAPEM in Montreal, to name a few. You will find them everywhere in Quebec.
We ask you to listen to those who are on the ground, those who are close to the action: municipalities, communities, employers and organizations which, for 50 years, have been developing the housing stock of the solidarity economy. We are at the forefront of the housing crisis. Looking to the future means avoiding stagnation at all costs, exploring how we can do things differently.
Housing conditions are and remain one of the most convincing indicators of social inequalities in our society. For more social cohesion, let’s build truly affordable housing on a larger scale. To the electrification of transport project, add that of building more social housing administered by cooperatives, non-profit organizations or municipal housing offices, since these three types of tenure do more than provide housing: they offer places where households flourish more, where many have their first experience of active citizenship. A larger pool of affordable housing that can meet the needs of a larger part of the population, a larger number of families. It is also that, a richer Quebec, richer Quebecers, in social cohesion.
* Co-signers: Marie-Josée Paquette, Director General of the Quebec Council for Cooperation and Mutuality; Beatrice Alain, director general of the Chantier de l ‘economy sociale; Christian Savard, Managing Director of Vivre en Ville; Alain Marcoux, President of the Association of Technical Resource Groups of Quebec; André Castonguay, President of the Housing NPO Network; Véronique Laflamme, spokesperson for FRAPRU; Jacques Cote, President of the Quebec Confederation of Housing Cooperatives.
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