Housing Is a Right
Montreal Rally Demands Government Action to Address Housing Crisis
On Monday, December 12, three rallies were held in Montreal to defend the right to housing. About twenty social housing projects are currently called into question and this is a great concern for citizens. Nearly 200 people attended the rallies, traveling from the southwest of Montreal to Rosemont and then to Saint-Léonard with a float designed by the Front d'action populaire en réaménagement urbain (FRAPRU) to denounce this unacceptable situation.
The
housing crisis is deepening and the measures put in place to provide
housing are crumbling. The 17 FRAPRU member groups in Montreal have
denounced the lack of new government investments in programs such as
AccèsLogis to develop new social housing projects. Hundreds
of
social housing units are
currently blocked or threatened because Quebec's funding is not
forthcoming, they say. Neighbourhoods are being transformed and housing
is becoming more and more unaffordable.
Steve Baird, coordinator of the Citizens Action Committee of Verdun in FRAPRU's press release: "In Verdun, there are social housing projects that are blocked by the lack of funding from AccèsLogis for new projects. On Gaétan-Laberge Boulevard, there is a project with more than 150 non-profit housing units for families, singles and seniors that is blocked by the negligence of the Quebec government. Since 2015 no social housing for families has been built in Verdun, while the housing crisis keeps getting worse. It does not look good to abandon projects that meet people's needs."
"In Pointe-Saint-Charles, there are two social housing projects that have been dragging on for more than 10 years because of a lack of adequate funding. Tenants at the beginning of these projects have died before seeing them built," testified Hassan El-Asri, coordinator of the Regroupement Information logement (RIL) of Pointe-Saint-Charles, before specifying that in Pointe-Saint-Charles, considering only the local list of applicants for a cooperative or a non-profit housing organization, there are 965 households on hold.
The POPIR-Housing Committee spoke of two projects that are currently delayed or threatened in their area, including the non-profit organization ACHIM in Ville-Émard-Côte-Saint-Paul. "This is a long-awaited 113-unit project for families and singles in an area where no social housing has been developed in 10 years," explains Ines Benessaiah, a community organizer at POPIR. "It was not retained in the Quebec Affordable Housing Program (PHAQ), and there are no units available in AccèsLogis." The PHAQ was set up by the Legault government in the spring of 2022. This program allows the government to provide subsidies to private developers to build "affordable" housing. It is privatization of housing assistance. It has nothing to do with ensuring decent and affordable housing for all.
Since the start of the Legault government's first mandate in 2018 barely 5,000 units have
been built, including some 2,500 in Montreal. The annual management
report of the Société d'habitation du
Québec
mentions only 527 units built with AccèsLogis
Québec and
AccèsLogis Montréal, in 2021-2022. As for the
1,700 units financed under the PHAQ, they have already been allocated
and there are only 434 in Montreal, a far cry from the 40 per cent of
units reserved for the metropolis in AccèsLogis. The
2021-2022
annual report of the Administrative Housing Tribunal confirms that the
number of cases of
non-payment of rent is on the rise. The latest HungerCount confirms an
increase in requests for food assistance as well. "Sporadic government
cheques, food banks and the food drive cannot replace the social safety
net; adequate funding for social programs, such as social housing, is
essential," says
Catherine Lussier, community organizer responsible for Montreal at FRAPRU.
The members of the housing rights group are now calling on the ministers responsible for Housing and the Metropolis to make this issue a real priority for the next budget. FRAPRU is asking for the financing of 50,000 social housing units in five years, developed by cooperatives, non-profits and housing offices, including 22,500 in Montreal. The group is asking that this be done through new construction needed to fight the shortage, but also through the purchase and renovation of existing buildings and their transfer to non-profit landlords to get affordable rental units out of the speculative market.
Until mid-February 2023, FRAPRU will travel the roads of Quebec to draw attention to the needs in different regions and the social housing projects required to meet them. As the budget approaches, the float will be present in front of the National Assembly in Quebec City as part of a demonstration to be held on February 16.
In February 2022, actions were organized in several cities in Quebec to demand that the Legault government invest in social housing. The demonstrators demanded that the Quebec government stop acting as the instrument of the dictate of private interests to the detriment of the right and urgent need of Quebeckers for housing, especially social housing that meets their needs and is not operated for private profit.
(Quotations translated from the original French by TML.)
This article was published in
Volume 52 Number 62 - December 20, 2022
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmld2022/Articles/D520623.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca