Ken Cervera has lived in his two bedroom apartment in Saint-Henri for 12 years. It is the longest time that has passed in a place in his adult life and, in a country away from his family, the apartment feels more than a home.
“As an immigrant, I’m alone here. All I have is my place. It’s not just an apartment, it’s my home, it’s where I live, where I keep my memories. It’s where I can be,” Cervera, 44, said Monday for the late in a community center in South-Outast County in Montreal, covered by Saint-Henri and other historically working class of the city.
It was the first time of Cervera, to attend a workshop of his local tenants of the Association, the Popapir Committee Logment. But after the Quebec rental, known in French as the ADMINISTRIF DU LOGEMENT COURT (Tal), made his greatest recommendation for rent in 30 years last week, Cervera wanted to learn more about his rights and on the efforts of his community to mitigate the challenges of the increase in life costs.
Tenants living in homes where heat is not included in the rent could see that their rent increases 5.9 percent, depending on the calculations of such the expenses of the owners. The quantity could rise more, depending on things such as apartment improvements and property taxes.
Calling a freezing
Tenant’s rights groups ask for a rental rental for rent until measures are implemented such as a mandatory rental registration and a roof in rent increases. They worry about the city’s housing costs, known for their affordability, they could soon reach Toronto and Vancouver, where rentals have exploded in recent decades.
“It is not human,” said Cervera, who has seen his neighborhood transforming from a poor enclave with an old architecture to a gentrified and hip strip with brilliant businesses and new condominium buildings.
According to Popir, rentals have increased 90 percent in South-Ouest in the last 10 years, compared to 59 percent in Montreal.
“That is huge,” said Catherine Fournier, a community organizer of Popir, who leads the workshop on Monday. “I don’t know how people are going to drive,” he said.
Last year, local tenants already called Popir saying that the 2024 rental increase in four percent was too high for them.
“Muding is much more expensive, so people run the risk of accepting but fighting to pay and then potentially be evicted if they can’t pay,” he said.
That is what worries Cermevera, and times are tight. Although Cervera, which is from Mexico, has titles of literature and languages of a university in Richmond, Virginia, and the University of Montreal, has struggled to find employment in its field and, lately, it has been working for a hotel.
Pay $ 725 per month for rent, cheap according to most standards, but Cervera’s salary barely covers its monthly expenses, in addition to the years of student loans that you still have to pay.
“I really did not expect this to be the case, after all the time and the money I invested,” he said.
Tenants who live in houses where heat is not included could see their rental increase 5.9 percent in 2025. That is based on the calculations of the Ready Board of the Board of Quebec every year, which the owners can use before sending A notice of increase in rent to a tenant.
Eroded affordability
According to the Autumn Rental Market Report of the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, although Montreal’s rental growth slowed slightly in 2024, “it was still higher than average salary growth.”
“As a result, the affordability of the rental market in Montreal continued to erode during the past year,” the report said.
The vacancy rate is still low in the city with 2.1 percent. The average rent for a two bedroom apartment increased 6.3 percent in the “specially designed rental market” to $ 1,176 per month. Meanwhile, the average of two bedrooms in the condominium apartment market is $ 1,724 and the vacancies rate in that sector is 1.4 percent.
The CMHC report indicates that the apartments are “scarce in the lowest rental ranges.” He also discovered that the average income increase for apartments that were delivered to new tenants was much higher, with 18.7 percent, than for those where the lease contract was renewed, with 4.7 percent.
The good news, according to the report, is that Montreal has been building rental units at a faster rate than other Canadian cities, which has prevented the vacancies rate from worsening.
They are not supposed to take off Quebec increase the rental of the recommended amounts among the tenants, but the data suggests that many do it. Quebec tenants have the right to reject or negotiate the increase in income with their owners.
That is why the Fontaine Group and its Umbrella Organization, the Housing Committees and Quebec (RCLALQ) Tenant Associations, has requested a mandatory rental record.
“With a record, there would be much less recoveries and renovations. Because why are they doing? It’s to increase rent,” said Fontaine.
Eric Sansoucy, spokesman for an association of Quebec owners, said that the increase suggested by such will allow owners to catch up with the cost of inflation, which has decreased significantly in recent months.
“The owners have seen their costs explode in recent years,” said Sanscoucy, from the Demoviliers Du Québec Corporation.
Imbalance of power
David Wachsmuth, president of Research from Canada in Urban Governance and Assistant Professor at the University of McGill, says he understands why tenant groups believe that the idea of catching up is unfair.
For decades, he said, there has been a favorable power imbalance for owners in Montreal.
“To which it is easy to find tenants. The vacancies rate is very low, so they can ask for what they want, basically, and the tenants have no choice but to accept it,” said Wachsmuth.
While Montreal rentals remain lower than much of the country, that gap is being reduced.
“It is really a very, very worrying moment because what we should say, at the national level, is what would be needed so that Toronto and Vancouver look more like Montreal, not vice versa,” he said.
Wachsmuth described the recommended rental increase in such “quite striking.”
“It means effectively supporting unsustainable growth in the cost of living for the tenants of Montreal and the Quebec tenants in general,” he said.
Montreal is distinguished with low -altitude apartments that historically have been affordable, he explained. “In contrast to Toronto and Vancouver, who have all these single -family houses and all these towers, Montreal does not have much of any of those. It is a special place,” said Wachsmuth.
“The more expensive the house becomes, the more we deteriorate the part of what Montreal makes such a big city, frankly.”
