Renovictions, rental increases, low vacancy rates—the Montreal rental market is growing increasingly inaccessible.
“But, by the time I got to UQAM’s website, everything was full.” As the start of the semester grew closer, Lambert felt increasingly pressured to sign for anything he could find.
When Lambert arrived in Montreal, it became apparent that he was paying far above the average rental cost.
According to a recent consensus by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the monthly cost of a three-bedroom apartment in Montreal increased by an average of $181 between 2018 and 2021.
To make matters worse, rental vacancy rates are on the decline, meaning a decreasing percentage of Montreal properties are available for new tenants to rent.
According to Alex Clifford, a representative from Concordia’s Housing and Jobs Office, the COVID-19 pandemic has made it even harder for students to find somewhere to live within their budget.
With few properties on the market and high rates of student demand, he said, landlords have greater power to raise prices and neglect their responsibilities.
After weeks of fruitless searching, international Concordia student Jade Ghanty and her boyfriend were forced to sign with a landlord they deeply mistrusted.
When I called the landlord, he said the renovations weren’t ready but refused to give a specific date.” For sixteen days, Emanuel was forced to live in a hostel, paying $35 a night.
Once Emanuel was finally allowed to move in, he was disappointed with the condition of the property.
If anything goes wrong in the building, or something breaks, it is her who receives the blame, as she is the one the landlord speaks to every time, Chadva said.
Data from Utile, a Quebec non-profit, found that 58 per cent of students in Quebec had experienced one or more of the following situations: being mistreated by their landlord, living in substandard or structurally unsafe accommodation, feeling unsafe in their neighbourhood, or living with people around whom they do not feel safe.
For students struggling with difficult landlords, HOJO offers a free advisory service that can be booked via email.
The Woodnote Solidarity Cooperative, a non-profit housing co-op, has been working since 2019 to facilitate inclusive, affordable, and democratically-run housing for Concordia students.
Though transformative for those able to access them, student-run organisations such as these do little to reform the housing market permanently.
To put this into perspective, a 2021 study by Bonard, the market intelligence company, found that Montreal as a whole offers only a third as many student beds as a comparably populated student city in Europe.