Community groups, opposition politicians call on Quebec to repair 'deteriorating' social housing

A man climbs onto the balcony of a barricaded apartment building in downtown Montreal's Ville-Marie borough. One nail at a time, he hammers a poster that reads "please save our low-income housing" onto the wood of a boarded-up window.

The building used to house six low-income families, Robert Pilion, the man with the hammer, explains.

On a tour of the building, Pilon, a co-ordinator at the Fédération des locataires d'habitations à loyer modique du Québec (FLHLMQ), points out the water-damaged floors and walls.

The kitchen cupboards are wide open. Water drips down into a bucket. The roof wasn't changed for 15 years and the water damage resulted in dangerous mould in the walls, he said. The families had to move out in 2019.

On Monday — in front of the barricaded building — groups representing tenants of government low-cost housing or HLMs (Habitation à loyer modéré) and opposition politicians called on the Legault government to keep its promises and repair what they call Quebec's "rapidly deteriorating" stock of low-income housing units.

The groups representing the tenants are asking the Quebec government to allocate $400 million to renovate social housing units over the next five years.

They say half of the funds should be dedicated to Montreal, where — according to the province's housing agency, the Société d'habitation du Québec (SHQ) — 75 per cent of social housing units are in poor or very poor condition, up from 66 percent the previous year.

Provincewide, the SHQs own numbers (from a March 31, 2022 report) show 40.2 per cent of the province's 64,663 low-cost housing units required major work, a jump from 28.9 per cent in 2020.

"We are here today because we really need to sound the alarm," said Patricia Viannay, community organizer with the FLHLMQ.

"How did we get here? It's a chronic under-investment in the maintenance of these buildings."

The activists say the Quebec government has failed to put the $2.2 billion it acquired from the federal government for social housing to real use, spending only $48.9 million of $275 million earmarked for social housing repairs by 2028.

"It's really a shame," said Viannay.

And the cost of repairs is getting more expensive.

Renovations to the Ville-Marie building would have cost $271,000 in 2020, but now the price has nearly doubled to $438,000, the housing groups said.

The FLHLMQ says the SHQ has reduced its investments in renovations in recent years — from an average of $352 million between 2015 and 2019 to $281 million between 2019 and 2022.

"It is more important to renovate [and] save what exists than to build new buildings," said Richard Gagné, president of the Comité consultatif des résidents (CCR).

Opposition politicians take aim at CAQ

Virginie Dufour, the Liberal MNA for Mille-Îles and opposition critic for municipal affairs and housing, says she is concerned by the growing number of boarded-up low-income buildings.

"The poorest people of the population cannot afford what is called 'affordable housing.' What we are seeing today is that there is a lack of investment in existing social housing, and we're seeing that it's getting worse and worse."

Former Parti Québécois MNA Méganne Perry Mélancon criticized François Legault's CAQ government.

"I think the inaction of the Legault government has a huge cost on people," she said. "They only take care of people who have money and want to build more property."

Andrés Fontecilla, Québec Solidaire MNA for Laurier-Dorion and the party's housing critic, also blames Legault.

"We are living in a housing crisis, everyone recognizes except the CAQ," Fontecilla said. He said the government's inaction will mean more dilapidated homes and shuttered buildings going forward.

The office of the France-Élaine Duranceau, minister responsible for housing, responded in a statement that said the full $2.2 billion that is part of the federal-provincial agreement will be spent on social housing by 2028.

It also said 70 per cent of housing units are in good condition and that with the help of the federal investments, Quebec has spent $1.4 billion in building repairs and renovations.