Sherbrooke Tenants Association joins Social Housing march

The Sherbrooke Tenants Association (ALS) will join “the great march of towns in villages" for housing rights organized by social housing activism group FRAPRU. The walk will begin in Ottawa on September 2 and will end 550 km later on the day before the Quebec general election. For 28 days, 35 to 100 people from different regions and all ages will walk every day to highlight the serious barriers to the right to housing that are prevalent throughout Quebec, and to call for ambitious commitments from governments to put a stop to them. Sixteen people from Sherbrooke will take part in the walk, including four people who will participate in the entire walk.

According to 2016 census data, 6,105 renter households in Sherbrooke spend more than half of their income on housing. These are people who have to cut their other basic needs and who should have access to decent housing, at a cost they can afford without breaking the bank. Currently, funding from Quebec and Ottawa can finance only 3,000 new social housing units per year for all of Quebec, says the ALS, but less than a third is realized because of insufficient funding from the Accès Logis program. The program was not revised before the election was called, despite the repeated promises of the current government. The ALS asks political parties to make sufficient commitments.

The Sherbrooke Tenants Association stresses that Ottawa will also be targeted for its lack of political will on the issue of social housing, including the protection of existing social housing. The ALS also states that the majority of the federal allocation under the Canadian Housing Strategy will be spent after the 2019 federal election and that no share is earmarked for social housing.

The march will cross the Outaouais, Laurentians, Laval, Montreal, Montérégie, Lanaudière, Mauricie, and West of the greater Quebec City area. It will stop in about fifty municipalities on the way and, in addition to the right to housing and the future of social housing, other issues will be highlighted during the month through themed days, organized with allied groups, which will address homelessness, poverty, tenant housing needs, unsanitary conditions, universal access, access to housing for families and elders, the right to healthy eating, literacy and mental health.

For more information, visit the www.frapru.qc.ca/grandmarche website