Ten years ago, now, we became commissioners of the People’s Commission on the right to housing organized by FRAPRU (Front d’action populaire en réménagement urbain). We traveled through the different regions of Québec to meet different populations and listen to their testimonies on housing issues. Our reportEmergency in residence, he concluded in particular on the need for a strong and determined government action in favor of social housing aimed at protecting the weakest subjects from a real estate market that continues to exclude them.
In Longueuil, we heard this single mother in social care report the respiratory health problems of her two young children, for whom the mold on the walls of her apartment was getting into their lungs. Despite public health medical advice and support from community and family organizations, this young mother was unable to have her home repaired by her landlord or relocate due to lack of means.
We met this elderly woman from the Îles-de-la-Madeleine, heard in Gaspé, who sadly evokes her hidden homeless condition experienced for a few months, to be close to her husband in long-term care. From the makeshift bed in her bedroom to being with her friends, she had depleted her material and relational resources, unable to move to be closer to her husband.
The story of this Aboriginal woman, met in Sept-Îles, remains alive in our minds, testifying to the discrimination she suffered in finding accommodation that would allow her to continue her studies. But also that of this man in Gaspésie who, suffering from mental health problems, a victim of stigmatization, told us about the stress that made him experience the difficulty of finding accommodation on the private market given his condition.
We have heard many testimonies from women in the various regions, which evoke the harassment and sexual violence suffered by private owners, doorkeepers, stuck in buildings from which they could not move, for not having found other homes, most often held by the owners themselves.
There is also in our memories this woman in her sixties, mother of a single parent family, who tells how the fact of having lived in a HLM had protected her and had protected her children, allowing her to financially support their sporting activities and the their academic success thanks to a rent that didn’t eat up his income too much.
For several years, the daily reading of the newspapers, as well as the discussions with neighbors, colleagues and family members, are as many testimonies of a housing crisis that continues to grow.
The transformations of resources for the elderly, the minimalist construction of social housing and the constant increase in rents feed a market that threatens the living conditions of a growing number of people. In an age of climate change, the forced removal of people from their workplace, support networks, school or childcare is an aberration.
But the reality is that for many families, in regions like Montreal, we always have to go further to find a rental or mortgage that our income will support. For many others, it is necessary to accept living in unsanitary and overcrowded conditions that undermine their effective right to housing.
Letting the market take its course also hampers economic development, because, due to lack of housing, workers cannot be present in many regions. Finally, for others, living in a situation of homelessness has become a reality due to the impossibility for these people to find accommodation. Shelters, lodgings, motels and hotels are welcoming more and more new faces of the homeless every day.
The solutions are known and were listed generically in our 2012 report. Indeed, to support an effective right to housing, the state must play a leading role in developing a public housing service by building public housing, in regulating costs of rent, in monitoring the quality of the accommodation, to protect the certifications of the various living environments, etc.
Indeed, how can you exercise your right to education, health, justice, work, equality, etc., when you don’t have some space to study, when you don’t have access to a bed to make up your hard work and exhausted by degrading work, that we have to choose between spending and renting or even that we are faced with companies with rich means to prevent us from appealing in time before the competent authorities in full equality, dignity and right?
It’s time to put an end to the “let go” policy; action is urgently needed to support measures that ensure the well-being of all, especially vulnerable people, and promote social cohesion and prosperity for each of us.
*Co-signed this text:
Marcel Duhaime, activist of the League of Rights and Freedoms
Dolores Durbau, receptionist at ACHIM (Community Alternatives for Housing and Intervention in the Environment)
Martin Gallié, Professor, Department of Legal Sciences, UQAM
Lucie Lamarche, Professor, Department of Legal Sciences, UQAM
Shirley Roy, Professor, Department of Sociology, UQAM
Barbara Rufo, social psychologist and human rights activist
Simon Tremblay-Pépin, Professor, School of Social Innovation
Élisabeth-Bruyère, Saint Paul University
Jean Trudelle, former president of the FNEEQ-CSN, activist at Debout pour l’école!
