a Quebec Accommodation The advocacy group says it is concerned that the province will have a record number of homes without anywhere to live as of the day leading up to July 1.
“On the eve of July 1, in Quebec, we count 750 tenanted homes who have not received housing,” said Veronique Laflamme, spokesman for the Front d’action Popular en Remanagement Urbane (FRAPRU), in an interview.
The estimate is based on requests for assistance received by municipal housing offices in the province, LaFlame said, and could change if families find housing in the meantime.
He said this number is much higher than the 420 tenant families who were without housing at the same time last year.
He said the number of households calling the housing assistance service this year also increased to 3,500 from 2,000 a year ago.
On Friday, 107 homes were being helped by city employees in Montreal and “still have not found a permanent solution,” the city’s communications department said in an email. Of them, “some are able to negotiate a short-term lease extension, while others will be able to be kept by relatives.”
The city said it has been able to temporarily house everyone in need.
According to LaFlame, “these numbers are just the tip of the iceberg of the housing crisis” in Quebec. She said more families are living in substandard housing, housing that is too small for their needs or housing that is too expensive.
According to the most recent annual report from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, published last February, about 30 municipalities in Quebec have vacancy rates of less than one percent.
In the Montreal area, the vacancy rate is over 3 percent.
On Wednesday, Quebec announced that it would increase a financial aid program for low-income families beginning October 1.
The government also said it would spend $2 million as part of “Operation 1 July” to help people find housing, and provide temporary housing and furniture storage for those who have nowhere to live. Are getting.
“There is no reason for people to sleep in the street tonight if those people call the emergency teams of our housing offices,” Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Andrey Laforest said in an email. Funds to provide “immediate assistance for tenants in need”.
LaFlame, however, said the government was not getting to the root of the problem. Her group would like to see the Quebec government take action against real estate speculation and evictions that take advantage of gray areas in the province’s housing laws.
According to the province’s housing department, more than 8,000 “social and affordable” housing units have been built, or are under construction, since 2018.
The city of Montreal said it was waiting for Quebec and Ottawa to reach a funding agreement that would allow it to build or renovate 6,000 social housing units.
While the start date for residential leases has not been set by the Quebec government since the 1970s, the majority begin on July 1. The practice began with a 1750 law, which established May 1 as the start date for residential leases – a move by the government to protect tenant farmers from being evicted in the winter in what was New France at the time.
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