2023-05-15 15:16:37
In 2022, some 360,000 households in Greater Montreal, or nearly one in five households, did not have enough income to pay for their housing and their essential needs such as food, clothing or transportation.
At least that’s what a survey by Centraide of Greater Montreal revealed on Monday.
The data thus shows that, in greater Montreal, for the average household, a minimum income of $28,000 was necessary in 2022 to meet basic needs. After paying their rent, these households started the month with a negative balance. Their total theoretical annual deficit is estimated at $3.6 billion.
Households with an income of less than $28,000 in 2022 had to go into debt or cut consumption basket expenses.
“This portrait of the situation shows that housing is not just a problem of the number of doors to be built, but above all of impacted humans and deteriorating living environments. The crisis is major, in addition to representing a significant social cost,” said Claude Pinard, president and general manager of Centraide of Greater Montreal, in a press release.
“The cost of housing puts great pressure on households, even more so on those with low incomes”, he added, stressing the urgency of acting so that “no one [soit] forgotten or deprived of their right to be adequately housed at an affordable cost”.
The report also shows that housing construction since 2019 in greater Montreal “is mismatched with demand” while new construction “has increased supply in the most expensive quartile”.
“Multi-bedroom units with below-median rents are virtually unavailable to low-income families seeking adequate housing,” it read.
For the organization, several avenues for remedying the shortage of adequate housing can be explored: making better use of the existing housing stock, accelerating the construction of new housing, reviewing the legal framework surrounding the right to housing, improving community support for housing and acquire data and mechanisms for monitoring the evolution of the situation.
1684170998
#Greater #Montreal #households #income #pay #housing
