In Montreal, 1 in 5 households can’t afford both rent and other basic needs | Globalnews.ca (2024)
Centraide Montreal is warning that the city’s housing crisis has reached staggering heights, with hundreds of thousands of people not able to make ends meet.
The organization says almost 360,000 — or one in five — households don’t make enough money to pay for their housing and for essentials like food, clothing and transportation.
“It’s staggering and not in a good way. We are talking one out of five households in the area of Greater Montreal simply can’t make it,” said Claude Pinard, the president and executive director of Centraide of Greater Montreal.
“They don’t have enough money to get through their basic needs.”
Centraide released the data at a symposium on housing on Monday morning, where 400 community stakeholders gathered to talk about the crisis.
Centraide says the housing crisis has a terrible spillover effect on other areas of concern, including child development, mental health, food security and homelessness.
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Pinard says the various levels of government need better coordination with community organizations.
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“There is not one actor out there who has a solution. The government alone can’t fix this problem. The municipalities alone can’t fix this problem,” he said.
“We need federal, provincial, municipal governments, then we need community organizations, citizens, we need promoters, and we need to sit down and let go of all corporate interests that we might have, and really try to work on solutions.”
Tough sell: Montreal’s housing market to continue sliding this summer
City executive committee member Benoit Dorais attended the symposium. He said his administration has chosen to focus on social housing as a priority, and he encouraged other governments to do the same.
“Every level of government including the city of Montreal has to make choices,” Dorais said. “That is what we are doing in Montreal. We are making choices to work against the housing crisis. I think that is a choice that each government has to do.”
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Centraide partnered with McKinsey Montreal to provide analysis of the current crisis.
Stakeholder Andreane Desilets says the government needs to step up and do more. Desilets is the executive director of the Benedict Labre house, a day shelter. The organization is building a $15-million, 36-unit housing project that will offer a place to live for homeless people with addiction issues or mental health problems.
The construction is supposed to be finished in the fall. But Desilets says the organization does not have enough money to hire intervention workers to to run the building.
“It takes at least six intervention workers in order for this project to be safe so this is the biggest issue we are having and this is a concern,” Desilets said.
“The government needs to step up. There are a lot of amazing projects and a lot of amazing people putting forward these projects and the funding is not there. “
The organization says almost 360,000 — or one in five — households don't make enough money to pay for their housing and for essentials like food, clothing and transportation. “It's staggering and not in a good way.
In 2020, half of condos sold over asking price. Housing prices in most neighborhoods have more than doubled during the past 11 years. Although prices are still lower than other Canadian metro areas, Montreal is losing its historical magic. Montreal housing is becoming unaffordable, as illustrated below.
It contained the city‟s formal commitment to making 30% of all new units affordable, half in social housing and half by the private sector through government incentives. The strategy establishes a guideline that all new large residential developments provide a minimum of 30% of the new units as affordable housing.
The cost of living in Montreal is cheaper than in 74% of cities in North America, according to comparison site Expatistan. Estimated monthly costs for a single person living in Montreal add up to $2,374.
Canada's housing market took a troubling turn for the worse during the pandemic. The cost of home ownership skyrocketed from mid-2020 across Canada. RBC's housing affordability measure reached its worst-ever level last year. It's no longer a story of high prices in Vancouver and Toronto.
The Island of Montreal has the highest number of people in a situation of homelessness in Quebec, as 47% of the 10,000 people included in the count live in this region.
The higher your income, the more house you'll be able to afford. In Montreal, you'll typically need an income of over $95,000 a year to be able to afford the monthly mortgage payments for the average price of a home.
It is a French province, despite being in Canada. Although many people in Montreal speak English, in any other part of the province you will find that English is rarely used. This is also true of parts of New Brunswick, the province to the east of Quebec.
The main drivers behind why is housing so expensive in Canada is too much demand (population growth) and not enough supply (new buildings), with rising and falling mortgage rates acting as a type of lever, either reducing or increasing the supply of new homes as they rise and fall.
Hodgson said, “The chief reason Canada's housing is more expensive is the greater barriers to entry for new construction: more urban containment, lengthier approval processes and costlier licensing. Any reduction in supply elevates the market price.”
The line shows a general downward trend in the poverty rate until 2020, followed by increases in 2021 and 2022. The following data points are highlighted: 14.5% in 2015, 10.3% in 2019, 6.4% in 2020 (the lowest point on the graph) and 9.9% in 2022.
Montreal is safe. The crime rate is among the lowest in Canada. The cost of living in Montreal is much lower than other Canadian cities, and there is an impressive selection of affordable properties, for sale and for rent, well-suited to family life.
The average selling price of a home in Montreal was $534,300 for the month of May 2024, that's increased by 0.6% compared to the previous month. On a year-over-year basis, Montreal home prices have increased 3.8% over the last 12 months.
Gaza, the housing crisis and climate change are top of mind for Montrealers this year. As voted by our readers in the 2024 Best of MTL readers poll, these are the most urgent social and political causes in Montreal right now. Explore the complete Best of MTL issue here.
Unlike other provinces such as B.C. and Ontario, Quebec does not set a hard cap on rent increases. Instead, the province's rental board, the Tribunal administratif du logement (TAL) provides landlords with a recommendation based on landlords' typical expenses for similar properties.
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