A revolving door: Dozens of Montreal social housing tenants get evicted, hundreds more at risk every year

On a dreary November afternoon, Johanne Lalonde was at her Notre-Dame-de-Grâce apartment surrounded by her 17-year-old golden retriever DeeJay and 10-year-old cat Poochie. The 66-year-old was preparing for a hearing at the Quebec rental board (TAL) the following day, wondering if she might be evicted. Again.

“I got scared, then I wasn’t afraid, then I got worried,” Lalonde says.

Scared because she didn’t want to end up homeless again. Then, she felt if she could speak out against “coercions” by the landlord — the repeated complaints against her for walking DeeJay without a leash or warning letters for having patio furniture in the common area — allegations she says are “falsifications,” she would be fine.

However, Lalonde was no stranger to the rental board and that worried her.

“If they look at my history, I’m blacklisted. Not that I’m a bad tenant – because I’m not,” Lalonde says who has filed cases against landlords or had cases filed against her two dozen times since 2011.

“I might get evicted anyways, when they already knew that I was evicted (before).”

In September 2021, a rental board judge ordered the cancellation of her lease, upon her then-landlord’s request so his daughter can move in.

Lalonde spent nearly a year bouncing around between her daughter’s place, hotels and living in her car before a call came offering her to move into her current apartment, operated by Société d’habitation et de développement de Montréal (SHDM), a para-public agency in October 2022.

The apartment was in the basement, dimly lit and small. But her only other option was enduring the elements for a second winter in a row with her pets. Lalonde took it.

Since then, SHDM has filed complaints against her with the TAL three times. The first time was in August 2023 when the agency asked for a lease cancellation on account of alleged “aggressive and disruptive behaviour,” which Lalonde denies. But, on the insistence of her lawyer, she took a deal agreeing to follow the building’s rules in exchange for withdrawal of the lease cancellation request.

TAL records seen by CityNews, show that the second case brought in March 2025 was dismissed for lack of proof. The hearing for the most recent case, scheduled for Nov. 14, was withdrawn by SHDM a day before.

She received an e-mail from the property manager Nov. 13, at 2:51 p.m., seen by CityNews, which goes “We want to inform you of our discontinuance at the TAL to cancel the hearing due tomorrow morning.” Lalonde reads over the phone, in a deep raspy voice, a few decibels loud, a result of an earlier throat cancer ordeal and hearing problems.

A revolving door

Like Lalonde, thousands of social housing residents in Montreal have been taken to TAL, leaving some housing advocates to question if the agencies’ place an unreasonable burden on vulnerable tenants. They also wonder if a zealous enforcement of rules risks creating a revolving door situation where previously homeless or evicted tenants may be back on the streets again.

“[H]aving strict rules or high barrier housing services with (sic) a lack of wraparound reports can lead to people ending back up in situations of homelessness,” says McGill University researcher Jayne Malenfant. “It is important to have flexibility and understand that their housing journey may not be linear.”

In Montreal, social housing takes many forms from those managed by the City, those run by para-public organizations and non-profits as well as cooperative housing, explains Lyn O’Donnell, a community worker at the housing committee, Citizen Action Committee of Verdun. Some social housing also caters to specific groups like women or those diagnosed with mental health issues, O’Donnell adds.

The Office municipal d’habitation de Montréal (OMHM), one of Montreal’s largest housing agencies houses 55,000 tenants in over 24,000 units, including affordable and rent-subsidized units for low-income individuals, seniors and those who have faced eviction.

An analysis by CityNews showed that OMHM has been involved in at least 4,531 cases between Jan. 1, 2015, and Nov. 30, 2025, according to TAL judgements database. About 80 per cent of those cases were brought by OMHM against its tenants. However, the total cases could be higher since not all cases get their hearing or face monthslong wait times.

In the same period, SHDM, which operates the building where Lalonde rents have been involved in at least 1,250 cases, of which about 87 per cent are cases were opened by SHDM.

Patricia Viannay, coordinator at the Quebec HLM tenants’ association (FLHLMQ), says she is not surprised that a vast majority of cases are initiated by agencies like OMHM, even though tenants might have legitimate concerns about maintenance issues where they live.

“What we see is that tenants in HLM (which are operated by OMHM) don’t go to the tribunal so much, sometimes they don’t know their rights,” Viannay says. “They think that they have no rights because they are lucky to live in social housing (…) They are afraid of consequences if they go to the TAL.”

Among the hundreds of cases filed against tenants by the two big social housing agencies each year, in Montreal, dozens result in evictions.

SHDM says that it has evicted 20 tenants each year since 2021, on average.

“[I]n all cases, the SHDM always assesses each individual’s situation while ensuring fairness for all tenants,” Julie Serra, spokesperson for SHDM, said in an email.

In OMHM’s case, the eviction rate was 45 on average between 2019 and 2023, representing about 0.19 per cent of their total dwelling, according to spokesperson Valérie Rhême.

“Non-payment of rent and behavioral problems that disturb the peaceful enjoyment of the premises are among the reasons that prompt us to submit cases to the TAL,” Rhême said. But she added, “We always try to avoid eviction, because we know that the next step after public housing is the street.”

Viannay says FLHLMQ’s own data for 2023 and estimates showed that nearly half the cases filed against tenants were due to non-payment of rent or frequent delays in rent payments. So, while she believes that OMHM gives tenants chances, she is also skeptical when agencies say that eviction is their last resort.

However, she says that tenants in social housing should not be evicted for rent issues.

 “The (OMHM) is supposed to help tenants who are evicted from their unit. So if they evict on one hand and the help on the other hand, it doesn’t work,” Viannay adds.

Lack of social services

McGill researcher Malenfant says even in cases where tenants might be seen as “problematic” for non-rent reasons, eviction should never be the answer.

“If people are kicked out for breaking ‘rules’ and then seen as a bad tenant, this does not accurately represent the complex realities of what most people are going through. It also isn’t grounded in a right to housing,” Malenfant adds.

For housing rights advocate, Catherine Lussier of the Front d’action Populaire en réaménagement urbain (FRAPRU), these numbers, while surprising, also point to a large issue.

“I think it’s more than only the management of the two institutions,” Lussier says. “There is a lack of social (safety) net that is also problematic, like just the capacity of having access to social workers, the capacity of having access to certain services and health care.”

Community worker O’Donnell says that in experience, these wrap-around services are critical especially to those transitioning from homelessness to a social housing.

 “A lot of people who have been homeless have experienced institutional trauma and just aren’t used to the structure or maybe of living in a new environment where they have to figure out everything all over again,” O’Donnell adds.

The fight continues

Two weeks before Lalonde was set to appear for her hearing, she was shuffling through a huge stack of papers and photographs, eager to make her case. Poochie, seeking attention, jumps over her lap and on the papers.

Lalonde says she has had trouble getting the help to represent her at the TAL hearing after approaching legal aid clinics, several housing committees and even her councillor’s office.

“I’ve been running around like a chicken with his head cut off,” she says.

But not all of them have been helpful. “They just said good luck, more or less, you know.”

“I’ve talked to 50 lawyers (…) either they don’t get paid enough from the government to help me,” Lalonde adds, “Or they’re afraid of SHDM.”

For Viannay, social housing agencies like OMHM have a responsibility to resolve issues in amicable way (à l’amiable), according to Quebec’s code of ethics for housing bureaus.

 “They have a code of (ethics) and they are supposed to avoid tribunal and judicialization,” she says.

Malenfant agrees that for vulnerable populations, such as social housing tenants, there must be a different pathway. They think that the volume of cases involving OMHM or SHDM may even underrepresent the complexity of the issues.

“[A]s many people living in these, often, can’t self advocate or access their rights as tenants to the extent that they need,” Malenfant says.

In the meantime, Lalonde may be back at the TAL again, even though SHDM has withdrawn their case against her. This time, though, it may be for a countersuit she has filed against them with the help of her neighbourhood housing committee, where she says she is earning a reputation as a “fighter.”