A week away from giving birth, an expectant mother was forced to move with her boyfriend to a smaller, more expensive home yesterday because their landlord no longer wanted their dog.
“Moving when I’m 39 weeks pregnant is stressful,” says Naomi Alicia Métayer. The couple, who met in Montreal’s Hochelaga-Maisonneuve neighbourhood, were moving a few blocks away.
Naomi and Rémi were paying $1,273 for a large 5 1⁄2. They will now have to settle for a small 4 1/2 for which they will pay a little over $1,700. In a few months, the rent will increase to $1,900.
“I’m going to contest this price at the Administrative Housing Tribunal for an unfair increase,” says Rémi, who agreed to be photographed but did not want to give his last name. Another tenant in the block he and his girlfriend are moving into would pay between $500 and $700 for a comparable unit.
“Lucky I have a good job,” says Rémi, “because we could have ended up in the camp over there.” He’s referring to the few tents pitched in Morgan Park, a few streets away.
Sharp price increase
They are not the only ones having to move in the context of sharp increases in housing prices. Yesterday, thousands of them were moving their boxes across Quebec.
According to a report by the Regroupement des comités de logement et des associations de locataires du Québec (RCLALQ), the cost of rent is increasing faster than inflation. According to data collected by this group from 2020 to 2024, rents have increased by 27% in Montreal, compared to a 17% increase in inflation.
Forced to change cities
For a single mother of three on the South Shore of Montreal, the solution was to change cities.
Stéphanie Fréchette has resigned herself to leaving the borough of Saint-Hubert in Longueuil to move some 40 kilometres away, to Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu.
Every day, she will have to drive 45 minutes to drop off and pick up her 4-year-old son from daycare.
Her new 5 1/2-room apartment costs $400 a month more than her old place. It’s the only option she’s found after five months of searching.
“When people asked me, ‘Do you have children?’ I said yes. They said, ‘We’ll get back to you.’ But they didn’t get back to me,” she says.
She was even prepared to expand her search area to move to Trois-Rivières or Quebec, even if it meant having to leave her job as a nursing assistant on a flying team in Montérégie.
“I don’t want to end up on the street with my children. That was my fear.”
√ As of yesterday, there were 1,296 households across Quebec that were still being supported in their search for housing, including 147 in Montreal. And 38 households benefited from temporary emergency rental measures.
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