Housing shortage in Baie-Saint-Paul | Apprentice carpenters to the rescue

Thanks to an innovative partnership, the City of Baie-Saint-Paul, in Charlevoix, will soon own six tiny houses built voluntarily by carpentry and joinery students. The first, inaugurated last fall, helps get homeless people off the streets. The others will help combat the housing shortage in the municipality.

“It’s Christmas today, I’m so excited!” », enthuses Marie-Ève ​​Trudel, homelessness worker for the Pro-Santé Community Center, in Baie-Saint-Paul.

We were well before the holidays when we met M^me Trudel and Annie Bouchard, the general director of Pro-Santé. But that day, the tiny house in front of which we met had just welcomed its first occupant, a homeless man who had been followed by the community center for around ten days.

“It’s truly a new beginning! He has experience in catering, which is something that attracted him to the region because we have a lot of demand. The problem is housing. »

Appreciated by tourists for its beautiful traditional houses, Baie-Saint-Paul is not immune to the housing crisis. Rent prices, floods of 2023, separations, domestic violence, personal problems, workers sleeping in their cars: the causes and manifestations are multiple.

“It’s very vast now, homelessness,” recalls M.^me Bouchard.

The tiny white house belongs to the City, which installed it on municipal land, and entrusted it to the community center to use as temporary emergency accommodation. Mezzanine bed, kitchen, bathroom, heat pump: this 160 square foot (8 ft. X 20 ft.) haven is intended to be comfortable and safe. Each beneficiary will be housed and supported there for approximately one month.

Kill six birds with one stone

At the origin of this first tiny house, there was a teacher who had a problem with premises.

Marc-Antoine Bouchard teaches carpentry and joinery at the School of Trades and Occupations of the Construction Industry of Quebec (EMOICQ), and at its Charlevoix branch, the Avise training center.

At La Malbaie, “I needed space, so I had to take students outside,” says the teacher we met in Quebec. This is how the project of building a tiny house on wheels was born.

This first outdoor project aroused keen interest from the population of La Malbaie, and won 2 prizes totaling $15,000 in a community project competition. The money was given to the school, which had paid for all the materials, and the school service center donated the home.

Mr. Bouchard had other groups to work with outside. He went to knock on the door of the town hall of Baie-Saint-Paul, his hometown. “I offered them two tiny houses for the price of the materials. » The proposal was welcomed with open arms.

“It’s an exciting and promising project. When we have opportunities like that, we have to seize them,” says the mayor, Michaël Pilote.

These two new tiny houses were delivered in the fall, on another municipal property.

“All that’s missing are the cabinets, a little cleaning and a little painting,” explains Mr. Pilote, showing us around one of these two 504 square foot (14 ft. x 36 ft.) houses.

The space is arranged like a small four and a half. It’s compact, but well thought out. And with the mature trees lining the land, the two contemporary-looking homes blend into the decor, giving the impression of having been there for a long time.

It remains to be seen how they will be occupied. The City could sell them, dictating conditions to avoid speculation, or entrust their rental to its municipal housing office. The decision will be made in winter 2025 for… five tiny houses. Baie-Saint-Paul has already ordered three other units, construction of which will begin in the spring.

Taking into account all costs (materials, transportation, installation, finishing, etc.), the first two tiny houses represent “a project worth approximately $200,000” for the City, estimates the mayor. The cost of the next three remains to be specified, but the income from the sale or rental of the five buildings will cover the bill, estimates Mr. Pilote.

“Everyone out!” »

The next three units will be built in Quebec, behind EMOICQ. During our visit, the students were doing mathematics in class. But towards the end of February, it will be “everyone out!” “.

Building tiny houses makes learning much more stimulating, explains Frédéric Martel, who teaches with Mr. Bouchard. Instead of “assembling-disassembling, building-dismantling” wooden structures which end up looking “like Swiss cheeses”, the students work on “a concrete product in the reality of this profession, outside, in the middle of winter », illustrates Mr. Martel.

And instead of changing teachers as they learn, the group follows the entire program with the Bouchard-Martel tandem. “We sell them the fact of being a team: 2 teachers with a group of 22, it’s a team of 24, so everyone helps each other all the time. »

The same goes for the schedules. “I manage it like a construction site, so we don’t arrive at 7 a.m.: we start at 7 a.m.! » Students from other programs, including tiling, plastering, electrical and house painting, will be expected to participate.

And in Baie-Saint-Paul, there are tiny houses, “there could be a few more,” slips Mayor Pilote. “Of course the shortage is still there, but at least we are trying to think outside the box and adopt new ways of doing things. When it comes to housing, we have new problems, so we have to innovate! »