By Maura Forrest
It’s transferring day in Quebec, and Mario Lortie is leaving his house of 27 years.
It’s not by selection. 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 on account of well being issues, and was paying simply $535 a month in hire. After a fruitless seek for one other house he might afford, Lortie turned to a neighborhood group that helped him get a brief spot in a downtown resort, paid for by Montreal’s municipal housing workplace.
So Lortie packed his issues into storage and obtained prepared to depart. He can keep on the resort for 2 months, however isn’t positive what comes subsequent.
“I’m going to need to maintain in search of housing,” he mentioned. “However 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 doable to earn little and nonetheless dwell nicely. However rents have spiked and housing availability has dropped lately. Housing advocates say it’s altering the face of town, whereas property homeowners say rising costs are a part of a vital 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 making an attempt to place one foot in entrance of the opposite. He suffers from melancholy, and he’s been having a tough time sleeping by means of the night time. He mentioned he struggled to get all his belongings packed up in time.
“I couldn’t deal with it,” he mentioned. “I used to be fully discouraged.”
Lortie’s story isn’t distinctive. As of Monday morning, there have been almost 1,300 Quebec households searching for assist from authorities providers to seek out housing, together with 159 in Montreal. The variety of requests for assist discovering housing has virtually doubled in a yr.
“Perhaps folks elsewhere in Canada suppose Quebec is extra inexpensive,” mentioned Véronique Laflamme, spokesperson for the Montreal-based housing advocacy group FRAPRU. “Quebec was perhaps much less affected by unaffordability till lately, however that’s not the case.”
In January, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Company reported the typical hire for a two-bedroom house in Montreal had elevated by a document 7.9 per cent in 2023. The hike far outstripped the typical wage enhance of 4.5 per cent.
On the identical time, the rental emptiness fee had declined to 1.5 per cent from two per cent a yr earlier – a pattern seen in lots of Canadian cities.
Housing advocates are sounding the alarm. In response to the Quebec housing and tenants’ rights group RCLALQ, the typical hire for accessible 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 … isn’t the identical metropolis that I see right this moment,” mentioned 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 principles that for years helped maintain costs low. “A part of the rationale why Montreal was traditionally extra inexpensive wasn’t accidentally. It was partly due to actually sturdy tenant organizations, protections for tenants and housing rights being enacted,” mentioned Jayne Malenfant, a professor of social justice who research housing coverage at McGill College.
However that’s now altering, Malenfant mentioned. Specifically, they pointed to a current legislation that provides landlords the appropriate 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 mountain climbing hire between tenants.
Following the outcry, the Quebec authorities handed a second legislation final month that places a three-year moratorium on sure sorts of evictions.
In the meantime, landlords say they’re additionally going through value will increase, and so they argue rents in Quebec must maintain tempo. “The hire will increase stay too low to be worthwhile,” mentioned Martin Messier, president of a Quebec affiliation representing landlords.
“If we need to see traders , we have to be sure that the profitability is respectable.”
Messier mentioned the hire will increase on accessible items don’t inform the entire story, noting there are various cheaper rental items that tenants hardly ever vacate.
In truth, regardless of the upward pattern, Montreal stays significantly extra inexpensive than the opposite largest cities in Canada. In response to the CMHC, the typical hire in 2023 for a two-bedroom house 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.
These days, nevertheless, Legault has repeatedly claimed that non permanent immigrants are accountable 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 stress in Montreal.
Dussault believes the answer is to construct extra social housing and go stricter hire controls.
“In Quebec, on paper, we’ve higher safety than in different provinces, however that is simply on paper,” he mentioned.
Lortie is at present 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 maintain in search of one thing that’s more and more tough to seek out.
“(Montreal) doesn’t have the popularity that it as soon as had,” Dussault mentioned. “We’ve spoken about how this metropolis has change into much less and fewer inexpensive. We have now mentioned 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 dwell on this metropolis, interval.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed July 1, 2024.
