Montreal City Weblog

Kate 09:12 on 2022-07-05 Permalink Reply  

• Ephraim 10:59 on 2022-07-05 Permalink

  So Kate… do you think that a for-profit REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) that has to answer to the shareholding public each year and also each quarter would be able to allow their apartments to be empty and boarded up because of lack of maintenance and repairs?

  For me, this goes back to the same problem that I have with Revenu Quebec… they don’t really have to answer to the public for all the dossiers on their desk by reporting publicly everything that they are doing and have investigative reporters question them publicly about it.

  If you had to publicly report each quarter, we could ask for intervention sooner.

  Among the publicly available information that should be published: Total number of apartments under administration, total number of occupied apartments, total number of waiting days for requested repairs, total estimated cost of repairs, total value of unoccupied apartments, reasons for unoccupied, number of days until they can be occupied, etc etc etc.

  It’s amazing how embarrassing numbers seem to light a fire under things when you have to post them PUBLICLY for everyone to see. And that let’s us question if management is actually able to do their job.

  There are people who really need these apartments, but no one to really answer for this. Not like we can fire someone for mismanagement, can we… we can just move them along in the bureaucracy… Competency isn’t a requirement to work in public service.

• Cadichon 14:34 on 2022-07-05 Permalink

  I’m not sure this is a mismanagement issue. Montreal’s Office municipal has been chronically underfunded for years. One reason is Montreal receives a % of the province’s total budget for HLM maintenance based on the city’s population. But Montreal has a way higher number of HLM unit / person then the rest of Quebec.

• Ephraim 18:31 on 2022-07-05 Permalink

  @Cadichon – I’m willing to bet that if all this data was published we would learn a LOT about it. I’m left with a long list of questions…. most of which need to be normalized as per dollar or per square metre. Is it cheaper to have the city do it, or private corporations? Are we better off subsidizing apartments or running them?

  It’s not magic. Just like a car, just like a human, just like everything else, you need maintenance… the occasional check-up with the doctor, food, oil, gas, whatever it is, it’s all costs and you need to have through it all the way through. And if you aren’t going to build buildings that were “crown corporation”, then we ought to think of how we are going to do it.

  I still prefer something along the lines of Habitat for Humanity, where the property is not a rental but with hours of work and maintenance, the person gains equity. I don’t think the city is particularly capable at running these apartments. The costs of unionized skilled employees and professional managers is just not the city’s forte. It just may be cheaper to let a professional run it and pay them a management fee for it. I can also be wrong… prove me wrong by publishing the numbers and showing me that the city is doing a great job… but the fact that there are empty unused dilapidated apartments… doesn’t speak well for the city’s management.