Government actions in housing matters

FECHIMM recommends that the Quebec government maintain the AccèsLogis program while making corrective measures, including adequate funding. This is one of the Federation’s main recommendations at the consultations taking part this week in Laval and Montreal, by the Quebec government’s new housing intervention approach (FR).

In these consultations, FECHIMM will also voice its opposition to any plan to replace the development of social and cooperative housing by awarding Rent Supplement (SAL) grants to individual households in the private rental market. This measure, said the Federation, is not a solution, since it only provides a partial solution to segments of the population really in need. The Federation is particularly concerned about the fate that such an approach would reserve for people subject to discrimination in housing matters.

The rent supplement should instead be used to replace the aid-geared-to-income in co-operatives and organizations at the end of their operating agreement with CMHC and in co-operatives from the Logement Abordable Québec (Québec Affordable Housing) (LAQ) program which have no subsidies for their tenants, according to FECHIMM.

Improve AccèsLogis

One of the improvements required in the program, FECHIMM demands funding indexation, capped since 2009, of the the current maximum realization costs. It also advocates the restoration of supplementary programs, recently abolished, including the Programme de rénovation du Québec (Quebec renovation program) in order to facilitate the development of co-operatives by purchase-renovation.

The improvement of the programs allowing the adaptation of housing units and more flexibility in the AccèsLogis program in order to reflect regional realities and reducing bureaucracy which cause unjustifiable delays in the completion of projects are also among the demands of the Federation.

FECHIMM also considers it necessary to set up a new rent-setting mechanism for non-subsidized housing units in housing projects supported by the government. The Federation notes that these units are less and less accessible to low-income households, being "pulled up" by speculation and gentrification in the central districts.

National housing policy

On a broader level, FECHIMM believes that the government has a fundamental role to play in fighting poverty and discrimination. In that sense, Quebec should adopt a national housing policy, which would be primarily based on the formal recognition of the right to housing.

Quebec should also align its interventions in housing to those in other sectors, including health and education, in order to generally improve the living conditions and the redistribution of wealth.

In the context where Ottawa is committed to play a new role in the development of social housing, the Quebec government must also make sure to get its fair share of the available funding and use it to improve its actions in housing, says the Federation.

For more details on FECHIMM's position, see the memoir Pour le maintien et la bonification du programme AccèsLogis (FR)