Several hundred people demonstrated Saturday afternoon in the streets of downtown Montreal to demand more social housing and a guarantee from the Quebec government that the AccèsLogis program will be maintained in the long term.
The demonstrators first gathered around 1:30 p.m. in a public square located near Concordia University before starting a march on Sainte-Catherine Street and other arteries in the heart of the metropolis, including the streets Peel and Sherbrooke. The nearly hour-long march ended in front of the Montreal offices of Prime Minister François Legault, where mattresses, some furniture and posters were left behind to challenge the elected member of the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) on the affordable housing crisis in Montreal.
“This pre-budget demonstration aims to challenge the Prime Minister himself to ask him to make this housing crisis a budgetary priority and to invest massively in social housing, at a time when voices are multiplying to demand these investments” , explained to Duty Véronique Laflamme, the spokesperson for the Popular Action Front in Urban Redevelopment (FRAPRU), at the origin of this mobilization.
According to the organization, more than 750 people took part in this mobilization, which occurs in the run-up to the tabling of the next provincial budget and the holding of a province-wide election campaign.
“What has mobilized people, especially today, is the fear of seeing the AccèsLogis program disappear,” argued Ms.me The flame. At the beginning of the month, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Andrée Laforest, announced the launch of the Quebec Affordable Housing Program (PHAQ), which has received a budget of $200 million to accelerate the construction of affordable housing, in particular by private companies.
The Minister then assured that this program is intended to be complementary to AccèsLogis. It is not known, however, what will become of this program created in 1997 once Quebec has exhausted the funds that have been injected into it over the years in order to allow the realization of social and community housing projects in the province. However, FRAPRU fears that the new affordable housing program announced will offer rents “at market price” which will therefore not be accessible to low-income households, particularly in Montreal.
“We know very well that the market rent is already too high for a large number of tenant households”, hammered Mme The flame.
“If we let the private sector completely take over the housing market, it will worsen the housing crisis when what needs to be done is to curb it. »Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois
“Privatize social housing”
Many flags marked with the logo of Québec solidaire were waved during this demonstration, in which the co-spokesperson of the political party, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, took part. The latter also welcomes with skepticism the new affordable housing program of the Legault government.
“More and more clues allow us to believe that this is in fact a strategy of the CAQ to privatize social housing in Quebec. We have more and more the impression that the CAQ is quietly destroying a key element of the Quebec model, which is to have social housing and non-profit housing in Quebec,” said Ms. Nadeau-Dubois, interviewed at Duty. “It is extremely worrying. »
Present at this demonstration, the coordinator of the Table of Women’s Groups of Montreal, Véronique Martineau, deplored that the housing crisis raging in Montreal particularly affects women, whose average income remains below that of men.
“Women are increasingly facing housing repossessions, evictions and rent hikes,” she sighed. Mme Martineau is also asking the Legault government to prioritize the construction of social housing rather than the financing of affordable housing built by the private sector. “Do you really think that these promoters will be concerned enough to take into account the needs of women in all their diversity? “, she launched.
The mobilization ended shortly before 3 p.m.