Moving day notes
CBC has some helpful Moving Day notes, La Presse looks at five households coping with moving house and Radio‑Canada talked to seniors having difficulty finding places to live. Young people with no family support are also finding it difficult and are relying on refuges called Auberge du cœur for a roof.
Can you live in Montreal on minimum wage? It was never easy, but now it’s impossible.
A few years ago, moving companies using bicycles were introduced here with a flourish. Metro went looking for them this year and could not find one. You can rent a bike trailer but there’s nobody offering to also hire out someone to do the work.
JaneyB 16:32 on 2023-06-30 Permalink
Yes, there is a low vacancy rate but am I the only person who had roommates for years? Young people rarely had their own apartments in the past. The senior who sold her house in Brossard and has a federal govt pension but is now ‘forced to live in a motel room in Granby for 1000$/mo’ is likewise puzzling. Some of these situations are less about lodging and more about something else.
Kate 17:13 on 2023-06-30 Permalink
I guess some of it depends what the person expects or can tolerate. I can only speak for myself, but I last had roommates a very long time ago, and would not cohabit again unless it was a last ditch alternative to being homeless.
Blork 19:12 on 2023-06-30 Permalink
I am not going to deny there is a housing crisis or that rents are skyrocketing, but I’m inclined to agree with JaneyB on some things. As with Kate, I wouldn’t want to co-habitate with roomies at this point in my life either, but if I were much younger and just starting out then it’s sort of normal to go that way.
If I were older and still working for minimum wage I’d probably tempter my expectations and go looking for a 2-1/2 or 3-1/3 or even a studio. That LaPresse article only looked at 4-1/2s.
That said, if I were a single parent and was working for minimum wage then I’d probably want a 4-1/2, so WTF do I know? And that scenario offers such a world of hurt and mayhem that I can’t even imagine it clearly. Yet many people live that every day.
Side-note: when I was starting out one of my dreams was to have a job that paid $30k. Now that’s a minimum wage job. (OTOH, back then I could rent an apartment for $250 a month.)
Meezly 10:53 on 2023-07-01 Permalink
Now and then I see posts on Nextdoor, or Plateau-based groups looking in the vein of “my friend is a single parent looking for a 2-bedroom in the Plateau for $1100/mth”.
Sometimes I’m tempted to respond by saying, you’d need a miracle or some kind of time machine to go back at least 15 years if you think you’re gonna find such an apartment!!
Meezly 11:00 on 2023-07-01 Permalink
And that’s too bad about the bicycle moving service :-(. We used them when we moved 10 years ago, and it worked out really well, esp. since we only moved several blocks to our new place..