Affordable housing advocates demonstrate in Quebec City

A sign advertising an apartment for rent is shown on moving day in Montreal, Monday, July 1, 2024. (Graham Hughes, The Canadian Press)

At a demonstration in front of the National Assembly in Quebec City, the Front d'action populaire en réaménagement urbain (FRAPRU) presented the government with a giant key symbolizing its solution to the housing crisis.

The key, FRAPRU believes, lies in the creation of new social housing.

The affordable housing advocacy group believes that the share of social and community housing in the rental market should be doubled within 15 years, from just over 10 per cent to 20 per cent.

To achieve this, it advocates the construction of 10,000 new social and community housing units every year.

Hundreds of demonstrators joined FRAPRU on Sunday, from all over Quebec.

The demonstration marked the end of two days of mobilizations in Quebec City, including a vigil held in front of the National Assembly on Saturday night.

Small keys were brought by people from different regions of Quebec. Each key bore different inscriptions relating to local housing issues. They were then put together on a clothesline to make them more visible.

Popular education activities were also organized on Sunday by the group in various neighborhoods of the National Capital.

FRAPRU spokesperson Véronique Laflamme believes that the heart of the crisis is not in a strict lack of housing, but rather that those currently available on the market are "extremely expensive and take absolutely no account of the ability to pay of the majority of renter households."

"There is an ever-increasing disconnect between the prices posted on the private market and the needs of tenant households, who are becoming poorer with this explosion in rental prices, at a time when non-profit housing is being built piecemeal to meet their ability to pay," she said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

Laflamme believes that these conditions lead people "who have a decent income" and never thought they'd find themselves in a risky situation to spend 50 to 80 per cent of their income on housing, putting them "at great risk of falling into inadequate housing."

In addition to helping tenants directly, FRAPRU believes that a government plan for social housing would give greater predictability to the organizations working in the field.

"Budget after budget, there is always uncertainty about the number of housing units that are financed," said Laflamme.

The spokesperson adds that since the arrival of the Legault government, there have been years when there simply haven't been any new units financed.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Sept. 15, 2024.