Jean-François Raymond in the kitchen of his apartment on March 15, 2023 in Montreal, Quebec (AFP/Alexis Aubin)
“I’m going to be uprooted”: like more and more Quebec tenants, Jean-François Raymond is forced to leave the apartment in which he has lived for 22 years and which will soon become tourist accommodation.
On December 30, this 58-year-old Quebecer had “the impression of falling into a hole”, when he received a letter informing him that his accommodation was going to be transformed into “short-term tourist accommodation”.
Same situation for his upstairs neighbor, Joseph Picard, who will have to leave the accommodation in which he has lived for 54 years.
“The owners want to make more money,” says this 68-year-old tenant, rectangular glasses and graying hair, who does not yet know where he will live after June 30.
Symptoms of the housing crisis, evictions have more than doubled in the cities of Montreal and Quebec between 2021 and 2022, according to a report by tenant associations.
And this “alarming” phenomenon is now spreading to the rest of the province, with evictions jumping outside these two cities (+508%).
Joseph Picard in his apartment in the Hochelaga district, on March 15, 2023 in Montreal, Quebec (AFP/Alexis Aubin)
“The majority of evictions are fraudulent: they are simply intended to carry out a speculative operation”, to the detriment of “the poorest people”, protests Martin Blanchard, spokesperson for the Regroupement des Comités Logement et Associations de Tenants du Québec (RCLALQ).
The Quebec Minister of Housing, France-Elaine Duranceau, recently promised to act against those aimed at creating Airbnbs.
The debate over short-term rentals has been reignited in recent weeks after seven people died in a fire at a late 19th-century building that housed Airbnbs in a no-go area of Old Montreal.
– Few possible remedies –
In the context of a housing shortage, evictions are also a way of applying “absolutely crazy rent increases” by signing a lease with new tenants, Martin Blanchard argues.
The facade of the building where Jean-François Raymond and Joseph Picard live, on March 15, 2023 in Montreal, Quebec (AFP/Alexis Aubin)
In the French-speaking province, the majority of leases last only one year, which opens the door to regular upgrades.
Still lower than in Vancouver or Toronto, housing prices in Montreal rose 7% in 2022 compared to the previous year, according to figures from the rental ad site Rentals, released in March.
“The owners are as much taken by the throat” as the tenants, replies Marc-André Plante, spokesperson for the Corporation of Real Estate Owners of Quebec (CORPIQ), referring to the increase in municipal taxes, interest rates and costs of renovation.
“In buildings where the tenants have been there for 20 or 25 years, housing prices are so low compared to the market that the owner’s expenses are higher than the income”, underlines Mr. Plante.
Posters for the right to housing for tenants, in the apartment of Jean-François Raymond, on March 25, 2023 in Montreal, Quebec (AFP/Alexis Aubin)
Consequence: “the rental stock is deteriorating and we are forced to evict the tenants to renovate it”.
Apart from certain exceptions, an owner can legally evict his tenant to transform the accommodation into a short-term rental, enlarge it, divide it, if he wishes to take it back to live there or for one of his relatives.
Once the landlord has obtained the necessary permits, “the tenant has no defense. They have almost no choice but to leave,” says Kimmyanne Brown, a housing lawyer.
Jean-François Raymond in his apartment on March 15, 2023 in Montreal, Quebec (AFP/Alexis Aubin)
According to her, vulnerable people with low incomes are the main victims, and few know that they have 30 days to file an appeal.
By losing his three-bedroom apartment, which he pays 910 Canadian dollars per month (618 euros), well below market prices, Jean-François Raymond will probably have to leave the island of Montreal, where housing has become scarce. and too expensive for him.
© 2023 AFP
Did you like this article ? Share it with your friends with the buttons below.
