300 people “got off the street”
City shelters say they can attest to having helped 300 people stop being homeless, in some cases with the help of a federal program called Bienvenue. Unfortunately, at the same time an even larger number have become homeless because of the pandemic.
Ephraim 13:02 on 2021-05-17 Permalink
The city has a list of all the vacant lots in the city. (Heck, you can look them up on the role. Like 2325 Ontario East. Maybe it’s time to expropriate for social housing. All you need is the space of a 20 sq m for each dwelling. Or they could use the space to make a rooming house, which the city also needs. Or they could lease the land to a REIT and use the money to provide social housing or write it into the contract and have them manage it.
Spi 14:36 on 2021-05-17 Permalink
How about the city starts by fixing the affordable housing units they have to leave empty because they aren’t in a livable condition?
Kate 15:01 on 2021-05-17 Permalink
Spi, earlier this month I blogged about how more than 500 social housing units were going to be renovated and put back into use because of $100 million from the federal government. The work’s expected to take 3 years but at least it’s happening.
Ephraim 16:58 on 2021-05-17 Permalink
@Spi – Which is one of the reasons that I don’t think the city should be running affordable housing, but instead let REITs run them and subsidize them… because they can’t maintain them properly. Never heard of a REIT that allows a building to go derelict… they have to answer to shareholders who want a return. Write a contract and let them take care of the buildings, since they have maintenance people on staff and know the exact percentages of costs.
@Kate – One of the buildings listed as an eyesore is owned by the CSM and just proves the point that school boards and some other government agencies don’t seem to be able to maintain buildings. That building has had scaffolding in front of it for years, wooden stairs and more. The city needs to change it’s permit charge for scaffolding on the public domain and raise the costs of it over time, exponentially, until the point where they can put a hypotec and seize the property. This will encourage owners to do the work quickly. The government needs to pass a law that allows the city to step in and do the work based on tender if the work goes undone within a certain amount of time.
Kevin 19:41 on 2021-05-17 Permalink
Ephraim
The CSDM was notorious for not maintaining buildings to the point where they had to tear down several—and others required complete gut jobs.
Baril. Sophie Barat. Saint Gerard. The list is very long. Those fools were incompetent
Kate 19:50 on 2021-05-17 Permalink
I still think it’s a real shame about Baril. That was a handsome building.
Ephraim 21:12 on 2021-05-17 Permalink
@Kevin – I think if you did an audit of buildings, you would likely find out that many of the school boards didn’t do the proper building upkeep. They all play games with their budgets… steal from voc. ed., etc.
Cadichon 09:09 on 2021-05-18 Permalink
Expropriation is the least cost-effective way of buying land. The City has plenty of other options to acquire land for social housing, through its pre-emptive right or the 20-20-20 by-law. And under PM the City has resumed buying land for social housing.
Regarding the units in need of repair, the Office municipal d’habitation is actually quite good at maintaining its stock, the problem is they depend on Québec for renovation funds. There is a systemic underfunding of HLM maintenance in Montréal, due to provincial fund allocations being based on population size, and not on number of units to maintain.
dwgs 11:53 on 2021-05-18 Permalink
You can add Ste Catherine de Sienne to the list of CSDM buildings that had to be demolished.