In three weeks, thousands of households in Gatineau, as elsewhere in Quebec, will leave their homes for a new address. Others will have to knock on the door of support services.
We easily have about thirty households that are homeless. Either they are staying with friends, wild camping, in commercial accommodation or in our emergency accommodation […] And that is a very conservative number.
notes the coordinator of the organization Logemen’occupy, François Roy.
1er July all year round in Gatineau
However, neither the City of Gatineau nor the community organizations are expecting a catastrophic situation this summer.
After several years of housing crisis, the emergency is no longer limited to the 1er July and actors are now used to being in demand at any time of the year.
” There will be no one who will be in the street. »
1er July, in fact, it’s already happening in February. So we’re already ready for that
assures Louis Sabourin, municipal councilor and president of the Commission Gatineau Ville en santé, which manages homelessness issues.
Same story on the side of the organization Logemen’occupy.
It’s always the same scenario. We are in a good season, so there are people getting organized. But it’s more around the month of August, when the time comes to enroll the children in school, that there we have a rush
, he said.
François Roy, coordinator of the Logemen’Occupy organization (archives)
Photo: Radio-Canada / Yasmine Mehdi
” The crisis has been perpetual since the beginning of the 2000s. It’s from month to month. We are constantly faced with requests for help from homeless households or families. »
In community circles, some concern remains, with a housing vacancy rate barely exceeding 1% and rental prices reaching historic highs in Gatineau. The recognized equilibrium rate for housing vacancy is approximately 3%.
The vacancy rate has never been so low, but also, the cost of housing has never been so high
summarizes François Roy.
The situation is likely to worsen for some, especially for the most vulnerable, underlines Alexandre Deschênes, community organizer within the Regional Collective for the Fight against Homelessness in Outaouais (CRIO).
This creates an increase in homelessness. And if we are not able to rehouse these people, the social emergency becomes congested. It creates a funnel effect and we can no longer meet the needs
he said.
Build more housing
The solution often mentioned is the construction and creation of housing. The City of Gatineau, which recently launched a shock committee on housing, is also studying several options in this direction.
In particular, a right of pre-emption policy, which would allow the City to make the first offer on private land, and an inclusion strategy, which would oblige developers to include affordable housing in their project.
However, these measures do not convince all elected officials.
Before implementing an inclusion strategy at the City of Gatineau, I think we have to look at what is happening elsewhere
supports the municipal councilor and president of the Commission for the development of the territory and housing, Daniel Champagne.
With information from Nathalie Tremblay
Reference-ici.radio-canada.ca