Thank you very much.
My name is Sandy Torres, and I am a sociological researcher at the Observatoire québécois des inégalités.
Before we begin, honourable members, Madam Clerk, on behalf of the entire team, I really want to thank you for this invitation to appear.
I would like to provide a bit of context for what I have to say.
The Observatoire québécois des inégalités is a non-profit organization based in Montreal, Quebec. Our team consists of a dozen people, and our mission is to produce and spread knowledge on various forms of inequality in Quebec to raise awareness among a wide audience and inform decision-making.
Today, I would particularly like to draw your attention to two points from a recent study conducted with my colleague Geoffroy Boucher, who is an economist. The project was carried out in partnership with six public health authorities in the province, as well as the Société d'habitation du Québec. Those partners wanted to shed light on the range of costs associated with the lack of sustainable housing action during a housing crisis.
The first point is the following: The lack of affordable and high-quality housing is associated with domestic violence, the victims of which are mainly women, as we know. For starters, financial difficulties put people at greater risk of experiencing domestic violence, although no socio-economic category is spared. Housing unaffordability adds on to that financial stress, which can create tensions. That means there's the issue of the cost being too high, but there's also the issue of a simple lack of housing, which can lead families to live in rundown housing or to cohabit in spaces that are too small.
In fact, overcrowding is a source of various health problems. It can lead to mental health disorders, sleep disruptions and tensions, which are all circumstances that are likely to lead to violent acts.
Based on this finding, our statistical analyses demonstrate that living in housing that is too small is associated with an added risk of experiencing domestic violence. We even estimated that the risk was 7.8% higher compared with people living in suitably sized housing.
The issue of housing is part of the solution for reducing intimate partner violence. That's the first point I would like to emphasize.
The second point that our work highlights is how important it is for women seeking to leave an abusive relationship to have access to a variety of accommodation and affordable housing options. Lack of access is a major barrier to leaving an abusive relationship, especially for low-income people.
I would like to share another statistic with you. Our analyses show that people who consider themselves to be very poor are 59% more likely to have thought about leaving home due to violence, but to have not done so. The data do not reveal why those individuals didn't leave, but it's fair to assume that a lack of financial means plays a significant role in the decision not to go.
For women leaving abusive relationships, the lack of affordable, high-quality housing is going to put them further at risk. Some will live in poor-quality or even unsafe housing. Others will experience housing instability to the point of hidden or visible homelessness. Experiences of domestic violence are a proven cause of homelessness among women.
In conclusion, I would like to briefly point out that housing policies are one of the key levers for improving living conditions across a number of areas at once. That said, it's still important to remember that domestic violence consists of a relationship where one individual has domination over another, which is overwhelmingly to the detriment of women. That means it's necessary to tackle the root causes, upstream, and address the persistent inequalities between women and men, for example by reducing income and wealth gaps, to ensure that every woman has financial independence.