COMMENTATEUR
Commentaires
sur la communication de Francine Dansereau intitulée «
Le logement social et la lutte contre la pauvreté et l'exclusion
sociale » par Martin Wexler
Over the last six months, I have had the pleasure of working with
Francine and others from INRS and UQAM on an important study on social
mix. Francine's paper this afternoon is a kind of a precursor of what
will be coming out of this study and I am pleased today to have been
invited to comment on her paper.
First, I would like to look at social housing, and specifically who
lives in social housing as it exists in Montréal. The conclusion
of this regard will be to limit the extent to which social housing
and associated interventions as Francine has discussed, can be expected
to favour la lutte contre la pauvrété and social integration.
(My point here is not to negate Francine's analysis but to place it
within the larger role of social housing in Montréal as it
functions today.)
Second, I will discuss briefly the physical form (project size) of
social housing in Montréal and its distribution.
Finally, I would like to enlarge the policy space that Francine has
described in order to discuss the revitalisation strategy that Montréal
has had in place in a number of neighbourhoods since 1996.
1. Limited possibility of social integration due to the clientele
of social housing
Over 50% of the residents of public (HLM or les habitations à
loyer modique) and of non-profit housing are elderly or are in need
of social support services. The expectation that such households can
become independent or socially integrated is limited.
Furthermore, the need for services for these clienteles is increasing
for a number of reasons.
a. The de and non-institutionalisation of frail elderly
and of people with mental health or other problems has transferred
responsibility from the social/health sector to the housing sector.
Incidentally, this transfer also implies a greater
role for municipalities and metropolitan regions. In Québec,
municipalities do not share costs in the health/social programmes
but do share costs in social housing programmes. In this context,
it is not surprising that one of the recommendations coming from the
Montréal summit is that an agreement needs to be negotiated
with the Régie regional de la santé et des services
sociaux for support services in volets 2 (personnes âgées
en légère perte d'autonomie) and 3 (population vulnerable
or à risque d'être sans domicle fixe) of Accèslogis.
b. The general tenant population is becoming more
marginalized. I mention just two factors contributing to this :
-
- the creaming of the "best" tenants,
due in part to effectiveness of a number of home ownership programmes
such as the Home Buyers Plan (HBP) (RAP) which allows withdrawal
from RRSP's (REÉRs) for the purchase of a first home and
mortgage insurance for the purchase of a home with a 5% down payment;
-
the decreasing incomes of tenants, in part due
to the reduction social assistance benefits.
Consequently, the role and function of social housing
within the overall housing stock is evolving.
2. The actual distribution by typology of projects (grands ensembles)
and by neighbourhood and arrondissement/borough according to clienteles
In a very recent article by Philip Oreopoulos, (Statistics Canada,
June 2002) (thank Damaris Rose and Francine for sending it to me),
the author compares educational attainment, adult earnings, income
and social assistance participation between children from different
public and non-profit housing types in Toronto. He finds no difference
due to project size, but does observe significant differences in quality
of life variables such as incidence of arson, bodily and sexual assault,
drug offences, neighbourhood disputes and sudden deaths per 1,000
households. Smaller projects having fewer than 250 units appear to
have significantly fewer of these problems than larger projects.
Montréal's HLM portfolio is remarkable in terms of the generally
small size of projects and their wide dispersion within neighbourhoods.
Only four projects, for example, contain over 200 units : Corporation
des habitations Jeanne-Mance (796), Îlot St. Martin (312), Boyce-Viau
(206) and André-Grasset (205).
Comparisons with the "grands ensembles" in France, the
United Kingdom, in major U.S. cities or even Toronto are, in most
cases, inappropriate or at least made with caution.
3. Innovative housing programmes for low and modest-income households,
other than social housing
Francine's discussion of innovative social interventions in Québec
was limited to those occurring in social housing projects.
I would like to enlarge this discussion, with a brief presentation
of Montréal's revitalisation strategy which includes, among
other programmes, a programme which promotes modest-income home ownership.
While less ambitious in their comprehensiveness than the neighbourhood
intervention strategies in France and the United Kingdom, Montréal
(and Québec) have been actively involved in the revitalisation
of distressed neighbourhoods through both the Programme de revitalisation
des quartier centraux (PRQC or PRVQ as it is known in the rest of
the island and in Québec) since 1996 and the Protocole d'entente
entre le ministère des Affaires municipales et de la Métropole
et la Ville de Montréal portant sur les interventions d'appoint
dans les quartiers ciblés 2000-2003.
Six years ago, the city and the Collectif en aménagement urbain
Hocheloga-Maisonneuve (CAUHM) lobbied and obtained from the provincial
government the PRQC. Fundamentally our approach changed from a rental
renovation programme to a neighbourhood revitalisation programme.
This entailed the following major modifications :
-
geographically targeted subsidy programmes to a
limited number of distressed neighbourhoods;
-
sustained government investment, with a five
year funding cycle;
-
programme flexibility by which the city could set
programmatic objectives and parameters, with approval by the Société
d'habitation du Québec (SHQ) (With this flexibility, the
city in turn created a number of programmes favouring owner occupancy);
-
possibility to support other-than-housing public
investment, ex. main street revitalisation, investment in infrastructure
(community social and sports centre, street and park improvements
(quartiers ciblés), etc.);
IN RETURN, the city agreed to share 50 % of the costs of the PRQC.
The agreement for the quartiers ciblées was 70 % (Québec)
and 30 % (Montréal).
The Montréal revitalisation strategy applies to a limited
number of neighbourhoods and includes a variety of programmes aimed
at the improvement in the quality of life (renovation subsidies),
stabilisation and recomposition of the socio-economic profile, in
particular increasing the number of owner-occupants (individual or
collective ownership), reduction in the number of physical nuisances,
in particular vacant and boarded up buildings and vacant sites (This
programme was awarded the CMHC Prix d'Excellence in November 2000),
the support of interventions other than housing which aimed at improving
the quality of life, the security of neighbourhoods.
In the terminology that Francine used, the strategy was both "exogène"
and "endogène". Even programmes themselves had both
characteristics: retaining active, socially upward mobile households
by providing a wider range of residential choices and making improvements
in the quality of life in the neighbourhood; at the same time, households
from outside the neighbourhood were encouraged to move there.
I would like to discuss one of the programmes within the overall
revitalisation strategy. The "programme d'aide à l'acquisition
d'un bâtiment existant"--DOMI-CIBLE favour modest-income
home ownership for the purchasers of existing plexes in the targeted
neighbourhoods. It consists of two volets or subprogrammmes: the first
is an education and training (ET) programme which consists of a series
of five courses given in the fall 2002 and the winter of 2002 in five
different neighbourhoods as well as personal counselling . The first
course was aimed at promoting ownership and the Domi-cible programme.
Courses 2 and 3 were pre-purchase courses and dealt with budgeting,
financing and the purchase process. Courses 4 and 5 were post-purchase
courses and deal with specific aspects of management, rent control
legislation, fiscal and tax issues, maintenance and renovation.
The E and T programme was delivered by a consortium of two community-based
groups: the Regroupement des organismes du Montréal ethnique
pour le logement (ROMEL), a technical resource group, and by l'Association
cooperérative d'économie familiale (L'ACEF del'Est).
The second part of the Domi-cible programme is an outright grant
(the down payment or mise de fonds often being a critical barrier
to home ownership), ranging from $3,000 to $8,000 for the purchase
of a 2-5 plex in the targeted neighbourhoods on the condition that
the purchaser agree to live in the building for at least three years.
The amount of grant is based on creating, at least in theory, a level
playing field between ownership of a single-family house and a plex.
It was calculated to bring down the down payment to roughly 5% for
the average sales price in the targeted neighbourhoods in 1999.
The two broad objectives of Domi-cible are the following :
-
to meet the collective goal of neighbourhood revitalisation,
in particular to improve the quality of life in targeted neighbourhoods
and to consolidate the municipal tax base. In this context, increasing
the number of resident owners is seen as a critical component of
revitalisation; (I can discuss the Devoir article if I have the
time.)
-
to create the opportunity for modest-income households
to become homeowners and in turn benefit from the advantages related
to this status, including saving and wealth creation. Furthermore,
ownership of plexes is particularly interesting because of the income
stream it generates;
-
to assure that such ownership is sustainable.
By the end of May 2002, the entire budget for the programme had been
committed, although the programme does not officially terminate until
December of this year. A total of 504 purchasers have been accepted
for the grant.
In November, 2001, a profile of 200 + purchasers was compiled by
Suzanne Chantal from the Direction de l'habitation. The following
data are taken from this profile.
- Almost 80% (N=199) of Domi-cible purchasers acquired duplexes or
triplexes.
- 38% (N=84) of purchasers have children living with them; almost
40% (N=83) are singles and another 25% (N=53) are couples without
children.
- Almost 30% (N=62) of households have at least one member (spouse)
born outside of Canada.
- Domi-cible purchasers are highly educated. 50% (N=114) of households
have some university education, with 2/3s (N=77) of these having obtained
a university degree.
- Almost 2/3s (N=143) of households have incomes of less than $50,000
per year; 25% (N=55) of households have incomes below $30,000 per
year.
- Over half of Domi-cible purchasers were already living in the borough
(arrondissement). Moreover, over 50% (n=112) of households came from
the same borough and another 22% (N=48) came from an adjacent borough.
- Furthermore, there is no significant difference between the incomes
of households coming from the same neighbourhood with those of households
coming from a different neighbourhood.
- The vast majority of Domi-cible purchasers were previously tenants.
In fact, 80% (N=184) of households were tenants or were living with
their parents before purchasing their plex.
- For almost 2/3s of households (N=144), Domi-cible influenced their
decision to purchase. Over 65% (N=63) of purchasers used the Domi-cible
grant to constitute a part of their down payment or to cover the transaction
costs associated with their purchase. Most of the others (32% or N=36)
intend to use their grant for renovations.
- About 60% (N=153) of households purchased a plex not occupied by
an owner. 40% (N=98) replaced a resident-landlord.
Conclusion
The challenge for Montréal is to shape creatively and positively
the major changes that have occurred within the last couple of years.
These are :
-
the merger of the suburban municipalities into the
new City of Montréal;
-
the 5000-6000 social and affordable units that the
federal, provincial, regional (MCC) and municipal governments are
financing over the next two-to-three years to palliate the housing
crisis;
-
the significantly increased revitalisation budgets
that the provincial government has announced;
-
and finally, yesterdays signing of the declaration
to finalize before the end of the year a contrat de ville between
the City of Montréal and the government of Québec.
This will give the city the same type of flexibility I discussed
with respect to the revitalisation programme. Housing is one of
the first priorities of this agreement.
7 juin 2002
