The city has been preparing emergency services for those who have no place to live on July 1. But that’s a Band-Aid on a gaping wound.
Moving Day, when a critical mass of Quebec leases expire, is just around the corner.
July 1 has always been a chaotic and stressful time, as Montrealers compete to rent moving vans and get dibs on scarce parking spaces so they don’t have to carry that heavy couch too far after squeezing it down the spiral stairs.
But in the midst of a housing crisis, it’s become a time of desperation for many, as greater numbers of tenants are being forced to move and then realizing they have no place to go.
Besides trying to help people find new digs, the city has been preparing to offer emergency shelter and storage services to those who have no luck. After last July 1, the city put up 134 households in hotels. The average stay was two months.
But that’s a Band-Aid on a gaping wound.
Montreal’s rental vacancy rate dipped to 1.5 per cent in January, down from two per cent in 2022, according to a report by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. And Montreal is still faring better than other places. In Quebec City, for instance, it’s only 0.9 per cent. Across the province, vacancies sit at 1.3 per cent. The market is considered balanced when there is turnover in three per cent of rental units.
An earlier study by the tenants’ rights organization found a surge in evictions. The rate jumped 135 per cent in 2023, as abusive tactics like renovictions, transforming housing into short-term vacation rentals or letting units fall into decrepitude multiplied the misery.
Given the cost of housing is increasingly out of reach for many Quebecers, the RCLALQ says decision-makers need to look at non-market solutions, meaning more social and subsidized housing.
Plante has tried to make social, affordable and family housing a priority during her two terms in office. But her administration has had mixed results. Her so-called 20-20-20 bylaw, which requires developers to include a certain proportion of social and affordable units in their projects or else pay penalties, has so far failed to create any new dwelling, although some apartments have been pledged.
Despite higher levels of government loosening the purse strings as the housing availability and affordability crisis becomes a national priority, breaking ground on new social, subsidized or affordable housing projects has proved easier said than done.
At the end of 2022, there were 23,000 households on a waiting list for a unit. The average time in the queue is 5.8 years. There were 4,912 requests for housing that year, but only 3,342 qualified. Just 1,215 units became available in 2022, and 763 of them were given to families or individuals already living in subsidized housing.
Much of this is due to a maintenance backlog among the 838 buildings, comprising 20,810 units, in the OMHM’s portfolio. Every year, about 1,400 vacant units need to be renovated to bring them up to standard, according to the auditor general. But delays in getting repairs done mean badly needed apartments often sit empty for months, if not years.
As of November 2023, 61 per cent of buildings were in bad or very bad condition, requiring $1 billion in investment to make them habitable over the next five years.
The causes of the housing crisis are multiple and complex. A surge in permanent and temporary immigration has boosted the population to record levels; a shortage of dwellings has made them more valuable — i.e., more expensive — be it to rent or own; inflation and higher interest rates have made home ownership more costly for everyone, while slowing down the pace of new construction.
There are no easy answers for getting shovels in the ground. And there are certainly no quick fixes for those despairing about where they’re going to live after July 1.
It’s enough to give Montrealers a case of the Moving Day blues.