With moving day only two weeks away, more and more low-income tenants are struggling to find affordable housing, according to data from municipal and provincial agencies.
According to the Office municipal d’habitation de Montréal and the Société d’habitation du Québec, requests for help finding housing have jumped by almost 100 per cent in Montreal and across the province in one year.
Time is running out for former computer technician David Gosselin. After three months of searching, he still can’t find a new flat and says he feels abandoned by the system.
He was referred to the Accueil Bonneau shelter, which doesn’t allow the 47-year-old to bring his dog with him.
“It’s demeaning,” he said.
“I feel like a piece of trash on the street that you just want to get rid of so you don’t see it. I realize that life has become terribly expensive and unaffordable for people on low incomes.”
With an income of $968 in welfare assistance per month, Gosselin says he’s losing hope of finding anything else come moving day. And he isn’t alone.
In Quebec, 1,460 tenant households that are looking for accommodation and are at risk of being without a lease on July 1 are being supported by a rehousing assistance service. Of these, 224 are in Montreal.
The vacancy rate in several of the province’s cities is also at an all-time low, adding to the strain.
The Old Brewery Mission in Montreal says demand for its homelessness prevention services is exploding.
“It’s getting more intense as we get closer to July 1. A lot of people have known for months that it was going to be a problem [finding accommodation], but they’re now pushing the panic button,” said James Hughes, the mission’s CEO.
Quebec is adding to the list of resources that exist to help tenants find and afford housing, but experts say those resources are in high demand.
George Ohana, the mission’s director of homelessness prevention, added that more and more people with no experience living in the street are reaching out for help.
“The issue today is that when you aren’t finding any housing, the only option left is the street. There’s nothing in between,” he said.
“I think everybody is taken aback … This is only going to grow. The housing crisis is not July, it’s all year round.”
Cédric Dussault, a spokesperson for the Regroupement des comités logement et associations de locataires du Québec (RCLALQ), says tenant associations have noticed the drastic increase in demand as well.
Dussault believes the demand will only get worse, adding that the province needs to do more to keep rents down and increase access to social housing.
“When you are not investing enough in social housing and when you are not protecting the current housing stock, well, this is going to happen,” he said. “Because you have no solutions for people with lower incomes, and you also have an explosion of the rents.”