More housing needed for homeless, say community groups
Pierre-Olivier Hardy is one of the success stories of Montreal’s social housing program.
Homeless for about a month, Hardy got into a social housing apartment for a year until he could find a job and afford his own place.
“It’s like a good springboard before getting into real life,” Hardy said.
While he said it was easy for him to get into a social housing unit, Hardy feels many homeless are not aware of the resources available to them to get off the streets.
“I have a few friends who waited to get into housing, and it went relatively well, but a lot of people don’t know where to go or that these services are even available to them,” Hardy said.
Hardy was standing outside Dîners St-Louis, an organization that feeds young homeless people and provides programs to help them. The organization was the venue used by social groups Monday to present their wish list for the upcoming municipal election.
The Réseau d’aide aux personnes seules et itinérantes de Montréal (RAPSIM), which represents 108 community groups in the city, said there has been progress in recent years for the groups they represent, specifically the opening of safe-injection sites and 500 new housing units dedicated to getting homeless people off the street.
“It’s good, but in the next mandate we’d like to see 1,000 more of those units made available,” said Amélie Panneton, a spokesperson for RAPSIM. “Because the needs are enormous.”
At a campaign news conference earlier on Monday, Denis Coderre said his administration successfully negotiated with the Quebec government for the city to be granted new powers, among them to fund and build social housing, which had been up to now a provincial responsibility.
“Housing is one of the key issues in the status of the metropolis,” said Coderre, who is running for a second term as mayor. “Now Montreal is the sole governing body responsible for housing on its territory.”
He said the city will create a new program to fund social and affordable housing to replace Accès Logis Québec, which helps give access to social housing. Coderre pledged to triple the funding currently in place for accessible housing and build 950 new social and affordable housing units per year, starting in 2020. He said without Quebec in the picture, there will be less red tape in the process, and it will therefore be faster for the city to realize its goals.
Coderre’s plan also calls for at least 30 per cent of new housing units to be universally accessible, and for preference to be given to families with children under the age of six, who tend to move off the island.
But Valérie Plante, the leader of Projet Montréal, said at a separate campaign news conference on Monday that the public shouldn’t take any of Coderre’s promises about housing seriously.
“One thing that has not been taken seriously by the administration is housing,” said Plante, who is running to unseat Coderre. “So little has been done in the past years to give options to Montrealers to make sure they can afford to stay in the city. We’re running behind, and Projet Montréal will take up that challenge. Housing needs to be brought to the forefront.”
Plante said her party will make its pledges for housing known in the coming days. On Monday, she was presenting her party’s plan to adapt the city’s streets for seniors. The party pledges to increase the amount of time at intersections for pedestrians to cross the street. The party also promises to build more sidewalk extensions, which will have a traffic calming effect, and decrease the distance pedestrians must walk to cross the street. The party will also add more public transit service during off-peak hours, which is when most seniors take the bus.
Now Montreal is the sole governing body responsible for housing on its territory.