“Stop paying the rich! Increase investments in social programs!” read a poster
On Feb. 12, hundreds of marchers gathered around Norman Bethune Square and walked through downtown Montreal demanding radical solutions against the current housing crisis in Quebec.
Le Front d’action populaire en réaménagement urbain (FRAPRU) and other groups joined to organize the first mobilization of a week of regional actions.
Housing problems are the new normal.
Every day the FRAPRU and other housing organizations see the dramatic effects of the housing crisis, noting the escalating number of tenants who struggle to afford excessive rent increases and face eviction.
“Today, we are going to call on Quebec Premier François Legault to make the housing crisis a real political priority,” said Véronique Laflamme, organizer and spokesperson of the FRAPRU. Excessive rent increases and evictions are a daily occurrence in the province.
“In the last three Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) budgets, there have been 500 new financial, social housing units for all of Quebec. In Montreal, only in the last year, there were 800 new families and households on a waiting list for low-income housing. Twenty-four thousand renter households in Montreal are just waiting for low-income housing,” Laflamme added.
Laflamme explains that the FRAPRU opposes the government’s current plan of privatizing housing assistance.
She says the government should fund the AccèsLogis Quebec program, an initiative created by the Société d’habitation du Québec, which supports non-profit and cooperative housing projects.
Andrée Laforest, minister of municipal affairs and housing and member of the CAQ for Chicoutimi, recently announced the Quebec affordable housing program last week that will expand public funding to the private sector.
The Programme d’habitation abordable Québec (PHAQ) aims to provide affordable housing by having a maximum rent set by the Société d’habitation du Québec corresponding to about the median rent. However, the new program is also open to private for-profit developers.
“As long as we are in capitalism, we will have to fight like this all the time to have access to housing. It is because society that is based on profit and not on the needs of the world,” said Marianne Amiô, member of the Socialist Fightback Students organization.
Maryan Kikhounga-Ngot, an organizer of the Projet d’organisation populaire, d’information et de regroupement (POPIR), is marching to emphasize what they believe is the only option to improve the housing crisis: investing in social housing to stop enriching the wealthy.
“[The CAQ government] wants to kill the AccèsLogis program and replace it with a program that is private funding. To mask it, he says it is an affordable housing program,” said Kikhounga-Ngot. “Someone on social assistance is not able to pay a 4 ½ for thousands and some that is what he calls affordable,” she added.
Protestors also demanded better assistance for the homeless communities in Quebec.
Catherine Marcoux, community organizer for the Réseau d’aide aux personnes seules et itinérantes de Montréal (RAPSIM) says 10,000 new social housing units per year is necessary.
“We believe that the Quebec affordable housing program will not meet the needs of homeless people. What we really need is social housing,” Marcoux said.
Another organization marching was La Table des groupes de femmes de Montréal (TGFM). Véronique Martineau, coordinator and organizer, pointed out how the housing crisis affects vulnerable women.
Last year, a study conducted by TGFM showed that women are having more difficulty finding affordable housing due to discrimination and prejudice.
“We doubt that private developers will develop real community housing that will truly meet the needs of women in their diversity,” Martineau said.
“Having funding for social housing adapted to women in all their diversities is a very important issue to overcome systemic barriers such as racism, sexism, homophobia,” she added.
Moving forward, the FRAPRU has scheduled more protests until Feb.18 all around Quebec. The next protest will be on Feb. 14 in front of Laforest’s office in Saguenay.
Photos by Catherine Reynolds