Two weeks before July 1, 50 households are still looking for housing in Trois-Rivières. The Municipal Housing Office considers that the situation is worse than in recent years.
“Last year, three households were in emergency accommodation on July 1st. Currently, we are currently housing 26,” calculates OMH communications advisor Marie-Ève Croteau.
She adds: “As of July 1 last year, there were 25 households who were at greater risk of ending up on the streets. This year, our team is already providing more sustained support to 50 households who do not necessarily have a plan B as we speak.”
It must be said that the vacancy rate in Trois-Rivières is one of the lowest in the country, at 0.4%.
Since the start of the year, the OMH team has received 519 requests for assistance, compared to 430 last year. “The portrait of our applicants is very varied. We have young people, we have older people, we have single people, families. Really, we cannot necessarily put a face to the crisis,” explains Ms. Croteau.
“I think that there will still be several families who will find themselves without housing,” adds Claude Jalette, coordinator at InfoLogis Mauricie. “Knowing that there is a shortage of accessible housing, suitable for families with more than two children, it is certain that there are also all people with reduced mobility who find themselves homeless. Plus the renovictions, the repossessions.”
Less social housing in Trois-Rivières
According to a study by IRIS (Institute for Socioeconomic Research and Information), the development of social housing is the best way to remedy the current crisis. However, Trois-Rivières is the place where the least social housing has been built between 2000 and 2023, among the six large cities studied.
According to researcher associated with IRIS and co-author of the study Louis Gaudeau, a lot of housing has been built in general, but this has not brought down prices. “On average, in Quebec, rental housing that has been built since the beginning of the 2000s rents 30% more than those that existed before. So that tends to tell us that we have built a lot, we have invested a lot over the past 20 years in the residential market, but perhaps we have not invested in the right residential products.”
The mayor of Trois-Rivières, Jean Lamarche, specifies: “This is a good indicator of the work that remains to be done. We must allow people to be able to find housing with a minimum threshold of 30% of their income. Has affordability in Trois-Rivières, which has always been our trademark, slowed down construction? I think maybe we need to ask ourselves that question.”
One year after adopting its Housing Policy, the City of Trois-Rivières could, however, turn things around while over the last year, “six projects totaling 221 social or affordable housing units have been put on track” , according to the city’s communications and public participation department.
