Over 1,600 Quebec households still looking for new place to live after Moving Day

Moving Day was July 1st in Quebec and there are still over 1,600 households looking for a place to live. That’s according to FRAPRU, which advocates for the right to housing.

Using data from the Quebec government agency responsible for housing, they also revealed that 379 of these households are currently in temporary housing provided by municipalities or by relatives, 185 of these households are in Montreal.

“It’s definitely also the affordability of what is on the market right now,” said Catherine Lussier, the coordinator of FRAPRU.

“Obviously it is still a really high number of tenants that are at risk of you know not finding or at risk of needing more support but there are a lot of those tenants who are actually living in really temporary situations like camping, friend’s house, family house.”

Some of the problems households are facing right now in finding housing, according to FRAPRU, are that many of the apartments still available on the rental market are just too expensive for low-income and modest-income tenants and that many households are facing discrimination.

“There has been a lot of discrimination in the last you know months, years, towards you know family, towards immigrants, people of colour and there is also discrimination that will also lead towards some tenants who have even more difficulty after 50 visits that will still not be able to sign the lease,” said Lussier.

FRAPRU says that all levels of government can do more to address the current housing crisis like implementing measures to better protect renters from evictions as well as preventing abusive increases in rent prices. 

They add that banning short-term tourist accommodations such as AirBnB until the vacancy rate is higher than 3 per cent could also help.

“This also could lead to having like thousands of apartments going back on the private sector and could lead also to this possibility and some tenants will be able to sign a release.”

FRAPRU would also like more social and community housing units built by the Quebec government — at least 10,000 a year over 15 years — so that social housing represents 20 per cent of the rental market in the province. 

“The prices are just going to go up. And social housing, it’s outside of this logic of the market, it’s there to host people that mostly have low income or modest income. So, it’s really outside of this logic of the market. So, for us, social housing represents one of those, one of the main solutions that needs to be put in front.”