By Maura Forrest
It’s shifting day in Quebec, and Mario Lortie is leaving his condo of 27 years.
It’s not by alternative. His new landlords, who lately purchased the Montreal duplex the place he lives, need to convert the constructing right into a single residence, so Lortie obtained the boot.
The issue is he has nowhere to go. The 62-year-old former social employee lives on welfare as a consequence of well being issues, and was paying simply $535 a month in hire. After a fruitless seek for one other condo he may afford, Lortie turned to a neighborhood group that helped him get a short lived spot in a downtown lodge, paid for by Montreal’s municipal housing workplace.
So Lortie packed his issues into storage and obtained prepared to go away. He can keep on the lodge for 2 months, however isn’t certain what comes subsequent.
“I’m going to should preserve in search of housing,” he stated. “Nevertheless it stresses me out lots, as a result of two months appears fully inadequate.”
Montreal has lengthy been often called a haven for artists, musicians and writers – a cosmopolitan metropolis the place it was attainable to earn little and nonetheless reside effectively. However rents have spiked and housing availability has dropped in recent times. Housing advocates say it’s altering the face of town, whereas property homeowners say rising costs are a part of a mandatory correction in an space the place rents have stayed too low for too lengthy.
However this July 1, the day when most Quebec leases expire, Lortie is simply attempting to place one foot in entrance of the opposite. He suffers from despair, and he’s been having a tough time sleeping by means of the evening. He stated he struggled to get all his belongings packed up in time.
“I couldn’t deal with it,” he stated. “I used to be fully discouraged.”
Lortie’s story is just not distinctive. As of Monday morning, there have been almost 1,300 Quebec households searching for assist from authorities companies to search out housing, together with 159 in Montreal. The variety of requests for assist discovering housing has virtually doubled in a 12 months.
“Possibly folks elsewhere in Canada suppose Quebec is extra inexpensive,” stated Véronique Laflamme, spokesperson for the Montreal-based housing advocacy group FRAPRU. “Quebec was possibly much less affected by unaffordability till lately, however that’s now not the case.”
In January, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Company reported the typical hire for a two-bedroom condo in Montreal had elevated by a report 7.9 per cent in 2023. The hike far outstripped the typical wage improve of 4.5 per cent.
On the similar time, the rental emptiness price had declined to 1.5 per cent from two per cent a 12 months earlier – a pattern seen in lots of Canadian cities.
Housing advocates are sounding the alarm. In keeping with the Quebec housing and tenants’ rights group RCLALQ, the typical hire for out there items in Montreal has elevated 27 per cent within the final 4 years. Different cities within the province have seen steeper hikes.
“Town that I grew up in … is just not the identical metropolis that I see right this moment,” stated Cédric Dussault, a spokesperson for the group. “We’ve seen a gentrification of neighbourhoods that has reworked fully the face of town.”
Some consultants say Quebec is loosening the foundations that for years helped preserve costs low. “A part of the explanation why Montreal was traditionally extra inexpensive wasn’t by chance. It was partially due to actually sturdy tenant organizations, protections for tenants and housing rights being enacted,” stated Jayne Malenfant, a professor of social justice who research housing coverage at McGill College.
However that’s now altering, Malenfant stated. Specifically, they pointed to a latest legislation that provides landlords the proper to refuse lease transfers. The invoice, handed in February, sparked protests by those that argued that transferring a lease from one tenant to a different prevented landlords from climbing hire between tenants.
Following the outcry, the Quebec authorities handed a second legislation final month that places a three-year moratorium on sure forms of evictions.
In the meantime, landlords say they’re additionally going through value will increase, and so they argue rents in Quebec have to preserve tempo. “The hire will increase stay too low to be worthwhile,” stated Martin Messier, president of a Quebec affiliation representing landlords.
“If we need to see buyers , we have to ensure that the profitability is respectable.”
Messier stated the hire will increase on out there items don’t inform the entire story, noting there are lots of cheaper rental items that tenants not often vacate.
In actual fact, regardless of the upward pattern, Montreal stays significantly extra inexpensive than the opposite greatest cities in Canada. In keeping with the CMHC, the typical hire in 2023 for a two-bedroom condo in Montreal was $1,096, in comparison with $1,961 in Toronto and $2,181 in Vancouver.
Quebec Premier François Legault has promised to construct extra housing. Final fall, the provincial and federal governments every promised to spend $900 million over the following 4 years to hurry up development within the province.
Currently, nevertheless, Legault has repeatedly claimed that momentary immigrants are answerable for the province’s housing disaster. Housing advocates say the premier is utilizing immigrants as a scapegoat, although the CMHC report does say that non-permanent residents have contributed to the rental strain in Montreal.
Dussault believes the answer is to construct extra social housing and move stricter hire controls.
“In Quebec, on paper, we have now higher safety than in different provinces, however that is simply on paper,” he stated.
Lortie is presently ready for a social housing unit, however with round 35,000 households on the waitlist, there’s no assure he’ll get one anytime quickly. Till then, he’ll preserve in search of one thing that’s more and more troublesome to search out.
“(Montreal) doesn’t have the fame that it as soon as had,” Dussault stated. “We’ve spoken about how this metropolis has change into much less and fewer inexpensive. We now have stated this for years. However now it’s not even a query of being much less inexpensive. It’s a query of getting the likelihood to reside on this metropolis, interval.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first printed July 1, 2024.
