The lack of housing, a crucial obstacle to the development of Fermont

The City of Fermont finds itself with a major obstacle to its development: the shortage of housing to accommodate employees of SMEs in the north-coast municipality.

If the big mining companies and institutions like the health center and the school board have the means and resources to house their workers, this is not the case for SMEs. Already, due to a significant lack of staff, the only grocery store in Fermont has been closed every Tuesday for 8 months.

The mayor of Fermont, Martin Saint-Laurent, is very aware of the problem which is beginning to seriously threaten services to the population. “Free market houses, there are a few. They are extremely expensive. There are hardly any for sale.

A light at the end of the tunnel?

To improve the situation, the community housing cooperative of Fermont was created. The City will give him around twenty plots of land to build around forty semi-detached housing units.

The municipal administration is awaiting a response to a grant application from the Government of Quebec’s Affordable Housing Program. According to Martin Saint-Laurent, the realization of this project has become essential to promote the recruitment of personnel.

“The school board, the health center, Champion, ArcelorMittal are able to house their workers. All companies that have the means to accommodate have less difficulty recruiting because they can advertise throughout Quebec.

“The industrial park is full.”

The City of Fermont also wishes to become more attractive to companies working with mining companies. Given the lack of land in its industrial park, the latest mining boom favored its neighbor, Labrador City.

“We weren’t necessarily ready and we didn’t have the ground prepared to accommodate all of this. So a lot of businesses have settled in Labrador. What we want is to prepare as much as possible. We know that there is currently a certain enthusiasm. The price of concentrate is high. There are investments in mining,” said Martin Saint-Laurent.

The City has therefore begun the process of acquiring public land near Route 389 in order to accommodate these SMEs. “It would be in 2 phases. If there are a lot of requests, we have planned for it by having several pitches.

Martin Saint-Laurent would like the mining companies to cooperate so that they encourage their suppliers to settle in Fermont and thus promote local economic spinoffs.