Several Quebec advocacy groups working in mental health, housing, and homelessness are sounding the alarm – saying the housing crisis is deteriorating even more.
With July 1 approaching, they’re asking the Quebec government to set up a transpartisan and interministerial committee, focused on community perspectives to better address the crisis, along with a structural action plan.
According to a press release, living in expensive and inadequate housing can have lasting impacts on one’s physical and mental health including the ability to find a job, buy food and feel safe at the same time.
“When you struggle to avoid ending up on the street, when you try to survive, the complexity of certain steps to find housing is insurmountable,” said Roseline Hébert-Morin from the Plateau Mont-Royal Housing Committee. “It’s terrible to risk ending up on the street despite all the efforts made. People feel abandoned by the system, lose confidence in institutions and so do we.”
The advocacy groups warn that every step not taken will have negative results in the upcoming years.
In Montreal, the housing crisis remains the same they say.
Rent prices have skyrocketed, while salaries and government benefits haven’t caught up, so tenants are left with the consequences.
“The deterioration of access to housing has disastrous consequences on our communities: the housing crisis causes homelessness and prevents people who would like to get off the street,” reads the press release.
PAS de la Rue de Montréal Coordinator and RAPSIM member Céline Duclap said homeless organizations can no longer keep up.
“We served 40 per cent more meals this year, and while last year in May, we welcomed an average of 63 people. This year it was more like 89 people. We also welcome, on average, 25 new faces per month,” she said.
Cédric Dussault is the co-spokesperson of the Regroupement des committees logement et associations de tenants du Québec.
He said that fraudulent eviction tactics, harassment and systematic discrimination are the reasons why housing is unaffordable for the growing population in Quebec.
Dussault also added that evictions are multiplying at a worrying rate.
“Results from Statistics Canada’s latest Canadian Social Survey indicate that three per cent of renters in Canada have been evicted from their homes within the last 12 months, which means that around 45,000 Quebec households have been evicted in the last year,” he explained.
The housing situation in Quebec is responsible for half of all homelessness in the province.
The groups accuse all levels of government of abandoning lower-income tenants because they’ve replaced social housing funding with affordable housing that can’t be obtained by a large proportion of tenants.
“At a time when tenants are becoming poorer at an alarming rate, housing solutions for lower-income households have been reduced to almost nothing,” said Dussault.
The multiple housing committees, mental health and homelessness organizations want stricter rent control measures to help balance the market.