Local renters’ association gives up on talking to local candidates
The Association des locataires de Sherbrooke, a local group that advocates for better social housing options in the city, says it is done trying to go through local candidates to make progress during election campaigns. Gathered on Thursday facing the campaign office of local NDP MP Pierre-luc Dusseault with a banner that read “un toit… c’est un droit,” which translates to “a roof is a right”, representatives of the association outlined their position going into this fall’s federal election campaign and the steps they plan to take to make themselves heard.
“For thirty years we have used election campaigns as a time to go and make presentations to candidates with each of the parties, and although they promise us things, nothing ever comes of it,” said Normand Couture, the group’s spokesperson. “What we have realized over the years is that the candidates who make promises don’t
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follow through. People are tired of this, they feel like they are being laughed at. What we want is actions, not promises.”
That in mind, Couture said that the group intends to make generalized public presentations once every ten days over the course of the fall campaign and also to seek audiences with the major party leaders when they come to town to take their demands straight to the top.
The spokesperson outlined two main issues that the association wants to see addressed, beginning with the construction of more social housing.
According to Couture, there are roughly 1,775,000 rental households across Canada that are paying more than 30 per cent of their annual income for rent. Although that 30 per cent mark is the point above which the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation considers a renter to be in a financially risky position, that figure climbs as high as 80 per cent for more than 300,000 of those households.
“The private market cannot respond to the needs of Canada’s most vulnerable people,” Couture said. “The only solution is social housing.”
The association’s second major concern is that parties develop a better understanding of and action plan to respond to the way that climate change impacts those who live in low-income housing.
Couture referenced the heat waves of the most recent summers as an obvious example.
“When you don’t have the money to buy an air conditioner or to pay for the electricity to run it, that results in serious health issues,” he said, noting that there were many cases of problems here in Sherbrooke.
In a similar vein he pointed out that people who struggle to find affordable housing in the first place are more seriously impacted by disasters like flooding or tornados, and are more likely to end up on the streets as a result unless some kind of support is made available.
“We can’t leave people without a home,” he said.