Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
The Front d'action populaire en réaménagement urbain, FRAPRU, is a group of 141 community organizations active in the various regions of Quebec, including 30 housing committees and tenant associations that are at the heart of these interventions. For 45 years, our association has been working primarily on issues related to the right to housing and promoting social housing. We are the voice of under-housed tenants and social housing applicants in Quebec.
As you know, a housing crisis is raging across Canada and is hitting Quebec hard. This housing crisis is in addition to two other crises: homelessness, which is being fuelled by the consequences of the deteriorating housing situation, and the hundreds of thousands of low- and modest-income tenant households who spend too much of their income on housing. Governments have paid too little attention to them for too long, despite their commitments to progressively implement the right to decent housing.
There are 1.6 million tenant households in Canada, of which more than 373,600 are in Quebec. In the last census, they spent more than the standard 30% of their income on housing. That is huge, and it is far too much in a wealthy country like ours. The median income of Quebec renters in this situation is only $23,800.
This housing crisis is caused by widespread scarcity of rental housing, but also by inaccessibility. The increase in the number of often illegal evictions for profit is fuelling it as well. The stock of affordable housing is rapidly dwindling. Quebec lost 116,000 housing units at less than $750 between the last two censuses.
Residential insecurity is now affecting more and more tenant households. The median income of all tenant households in Quebec is $48,400 compared to $55,000 in Canada as a whole. This median income means that they are less and less able to afford a decent place to live without cutting expenses for other essential needs such as food, travel, children's clothing and school supplies. The social safety net isn't there for tenants who lose their housing, since alternatives to overpriced private housing aren't available because of the lack of social housing in various forms. The consequences are dramatic, particularly for seniors, children and women fleeing domestic violence.
In this context, it is clearly social housing that the federal government must prioritize. Whether in the form of public housing, co‑operatives or non‑profit housing organizations, social housing provides a roof that meets the diverse needs of tenants, and at a price that respects their ability to pay. It's also the solution for thousands of people experiencing homelessness. It's the most comprehensive and permanent form of housing assistance. However, there's a serious lack of social housing. If the federal government hadn't stopped funding its long‑term development, we would have tens of thousands of social housing units, meeting those needs, across Canada today.
To get out of the double crisis that is hard on tenants in Quebec and across Canada, building tens of thousands of housing units, regardless of their price and tenure, won't be enough. It may solve the shortage problem, but along the way, we will have compounded the problem of inaccessibility, which is already untenable in a number of cities in Quebec and Canada.
Newly built private housing doesn't offer rents commensurate with the ability to pay for a significant portion of tenant households. In addition, in Quebec, landlords can raise rents at will in the five years following the construction of the dwelling, further pushing up prices. That's also the case in other provinces. If the supply of housing is to be increased, it's important to ensure that it's done by targeting and supporting, with public funds, those that will sustainably meet the needs of our most disadvantaged fellow citizens. For that reason, social housing must be given priority.
While investments in social housing are insufficient and the national housing strategy allocates a tiny fraction of the billions allocated to it, low‑income and modest‑income renters are the most forgotten. Only the rapid housing initiative, which covered all the costs of carrying out projects, was dedicated to them, but it's not recurring, and the last budget didn't grant new funding to it.
We think it's time to stop using public funds to support private housing development projects that are too expensive. Real estate is a profitable investment sector, and the profits of private developers are pocketed by them alone, especially when buildings are sold. There is no guarantee that public funds going to private developers will support the affordability of new housing being built.
Public funds must be invested in sustainable solutions that address the collective needs of communities, in other words, social housing outside the private market. It could be through co‑operatives, not-for-profit organizations or public agencies that support low-income housing.
That is why we oppose eliminating the goods and services tax, or GST, on all new rental housing. In its November economic update, the government estimated that the measure would cost a whopping $4.6 billion—