Feds partner with Montreal, Quebec to finance nearly 200 affordable housing units

There is a plan for more rooming houses downtown that includes a promise of financing from Ottawa, Quebec and the City of Montreal.

On Ontario Street, near Saint-Denis Street, there is a building that used to be a bed-and-breakfast before the pandemic. Now, it's being repurposed as a supervised rooming house for men on social assistance who are on the verge of homelessness

"If you need to pay $1,000 for your housing and your income is $800 you can't afford living somewhere," said Bruno Ferrari, the executive director of Vilavi Canada.

The building is part of a plan by the three levels of government to finance 191 new rooms for the city's most vulnerable. It includes new housing for women, run by the women's Downtown YWCA, and another place for teenagers and young adults getting off the street.

The city is investing $5.8 million to the $80.5 million project, with $32.2 million coming from the federal government. 

But it's not a fast process.

"It took five years for our project to get off the ground to build 54 rooms for at-risk seniors," explained the executive director of La Maison du Père, Jaëlle Begarin.

Yet the latest headcount for Montreal's unhoused population suggests 4,500 people are in urgent need of a roof. Mayor Valérie Plante admits it's an administrative headache because it involves the municipal, provincial and federal governments.

"It's more complicated as you can see for a not-for-profit to knock on so many doors asking for money and sometimes by the time it gets money from one level of government, the price has risen for the building or the construction," she said Wednesday.

Federal cabinet minister Steven Guilbault, who represents the downtown Ville-Marie borough, says Ottawa is speeding up its housing investments, but critics say the needs far exceed the offering.