The face of renovations

“I have a hearing on July 20, and I am waiting to see what will happen,” Mr. Boujemaa, who prefers to keep his first name quiet, told us in a worried voice last month. This father of the family is one of the many Montreal tenants who have to leave their homes, and are therefore threatened with eviction, due to the renovations of their owner.

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A protracted battle in La Petite-Patrie

Since 2015, the owner of the building where Mr. Boujemaa lives has been trying by all means to evict him from his home in La Petite-Patrie. “In 2015, he told me that he would do everything possible for me to leave my home,” he reports. He told me: “We're in Canada, you'll see.”” That's the threat the man made to him, knowing that his tenant has an immigration background.

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Since then, every year, Mr. Boujemaa has been going to the Administrative Housing Tribunal (TAL) to defend his right to stay at home. Her biggest fear is that her family will be uprooted. “Last year, the owner told me that he had sold my home to his brother-in-law. He told me that it was an eviction due to his daughter taking over his home,” says the father of two children. The judge ruled in favor of the tenant following a mistake found in the file. “The story of the owner's niece who wanted my home was not true,” he said.

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Two months after these events, a construction company contacted Mr. Boujemaa. According to him, the owner wanted to transform the duplex that houses the family home into a single-family home. The contractor had managed to obtain a permit, even though no architect had entered Mr. Boujemaa's house in order to take steps for work. “Today, I am the only one who lives in this duplex. They evicted tenants from the other units last summer. The land in the building is for sale. They are just waiting for me to leave to launch their project,” he said with apprehension.

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The housing crisis in Parc-Extension

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The Parc-Extension district is particularly affected by renovations. Many people there are experiencing situations similar to that of Mr. Boujemaa. However, when you walk through the lively streets of the neighborhood, this reality is invisible.

Merchants are on the doorstep of their businesses and are checking in on their customers. In front of their stalls full of multicolored fruits and vegetables, a string of strollers and children animate the sidewalks, in the company of their parents or early childhood educators. On the porch of restaurants, old friends chat and laugh, sitting on plastic chairs, cigarettes in hand. It's hard to believe that, in these streets that are brimming with the joy of life, a much darker reality is hidden. Cases of renovations punctuate the daily life of Rizwan Khan, a speaker from the Parc-Extension Action Committee (CAPE).

Every day, CAPE manages housing crises. Mr. Khan leads us to 7434 Querbes Street, a trivial, four-storey red brick building. Empty for over a year, the quadruplex was the scene of evictions. The intervener says that the owner offered his tenants money to encourage them to leave. “Most of the tenants of 7434, rue Querbes ended up moving and finding accommodation elsewhere. Two stayed until the end. There were people without status, new arrivals, families, very old and vulnerable people,” Mr Khan reports. A lady had lived there for decades. “Technically, under the law, she couldn't even be evicted. The Civil Code protects low-income people over the age of 75 who have lived in a place for more than 10 years. But she was kicked out, like everyone else,” laments the speaker. The owner managed to get around the law by forcing her to consent to leave herself.

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7434 Querbes Street was sold, and the owner made a profit of several hundred thousand dollars. The new owner removed all fire safety systems, which is illegal. After this initiative, firefighters had to intervene and evacuate the building for safety reasons. Without fire safety systems, it was impossible for tenants to return to their homes. According to Mr. Khan, this gesture is a way for the new owner to carry out illegal evictions. “The rationale is that he is in the process of rebuilding the building and must remove everything inside,” he said. In a few months, these apartments will be refurbished and ready for new rentals. “More affluent people will live there, because the rents will have doubled or tripled,” predicts the speaker.

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Since the new University of Montreal campus opened in the neighborhood in 2018, renovations have accelerated. Knowing that university students and professionals working at the university have the option of paying more expensive rents, landlords are redoubling their efforts to drive out their former tenants and renovate the units. These tenants are forced to move further and further away from the center of the city or to pay double their old rent for housing that is often of poor quality.

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A difficult struggle for families

Not far away, we stop in front of a building that has suffered a similar fate. 555-561 Saint-Roch Street is a two-story red brick duplex located next to a grocery store. The building with its dilapidated doors contrasts with the walls decorated with biblical scenes in the church located at the same intersection. Babbling and the happy din of children playing come to us through the ajar door to the balcony of a second-floor apartment.

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It was the soundtrack of the neighboring apartments when they were lived in. “A Pakistani family lived there,” said Mr. Khan, pointing to the neighboring house. Two brothers, their wives, their children, grandma,” he adds about his former customers, some of whom were new arrivals, while others had been here longer. The owner of the building tried to evict them by telling them that he was going to house a member of his own family in their unit. He offered them $10,000 to leave. The family consulted the CAPE, and a file was opened at the TAL. During the proceedings, language barriers complicated matters, with the family speaking only English and their native language. They ended up leaving their homes.

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Unattainable remedies

Language challenges are not uncommon. Guiying Wang, an intervener at the Chinese Family Service, regularly receives calls from allophone citizens facing threats of eviction. It helps these people, who do not speak French or English, to find their way around the great labyrinth of Quebec housing rights.

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The needs are such that Ms. Wang is constantly overwhelmed by calls, which come in on several phone lines at the same time. “If they don't speak French or English, they are told to write a summary of their situation in Chinese. Afterwards, we help them translate it and communicate their situation to the tenant committee in their district,” explains Ms. Wang. Unfortunately, the organization does not have the resources to provide guidance throughout the procedures. “They are strongly encouraged to ask for help from family or friends who are more comfortable in French and English,” she explains. If they need to go to TAL, the organization offers its clients the services of translators, lawyers, and social workers who speak various Chinese dialects. Despite this, acts of intimidation by landlords abound, who particularly target tenants who do not know their rights or the language. Tenants in Parc-Extension are targeted by renovations for similar reasons. “On paper, remedies exist. Someone can go to court, contest, show that the owner is acting in bad faith or did not do his project well and win his case,” says Mr. Khan.

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But getting in touch with complainants is difficult because of the language barrier. “It is also difficult to let tenants know their rights, because everything is in French. They are not aware of the existence of CAPE and are therefore resigned to their fate,” he regrets.The fact that several tenants are already living in precariousness, in addition to having other responsibilities and being overwhelmed with their work and family, only worsens their situation. Often, they don't have time, money, or energy left to fight to stay in their homes. And the challenges don't end there. Even if tenants succeed in overcoming these obstacles and submitting their case to court, barriers still remain. “There is also a shortage of lawyers to represent tenants. So, even if there is access to justice — which is not always the case —, there is a lack of lawyers, even at CAPE.” It was this shortage of housing lawyers that prompted Mr. Khan to study law. “Even if these populations know their rights, do they have the means to protect themselves? ”

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According to Leslie Touré Kapo, a researcher in urban security, these numerous obstacles are among the systemic barriers that affect populations in working-class neighborhoods more widely. “The question is whether these populations facing precarious situations know their rights. And even if they know their rights, do they have the means to protect themselves? he asks. “The mental burden associated with the legal procedure must be taken into account. Someone who works two jobs in the same day doesn't necessarily have the time and the energy. We need to ask ourselves about the workload that is really taken on by people from working-class neighborhoods who make a complaint,” he explains. The researcher believes that the city must question the accessibility of legal remedies for the most marginalized and most precarious tenants in Montreal.

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This kind of systemic barrier got the better of Mr. Boujemaa. Almost two weeks after our first discussion, he informed us that his hearing had been postponed to mid-August and that it was hopeless. “I have to leave, I have no chance. The lawyer told me that my landlord had the building permit, that all his documents were in order. He found the loophole,” he tells us in a panic. “I am looking for another place to stay and I have not found anything. The homes I visited are substandard and full of mold, with rents of $1,200 or $1,300. It's hell! He is sorry. He certainly does not want to move far from La Petite-Patrie, because otherwise his children will have to drive more than an hour to continue attending their high school. “I visited three apartments nearby. I was not given an answer after I filled out the form for one of them. Another was extremely unsanitary. It's a disaster,” he exclaims. Being forced to move in the middle of the pandemic only adds to the stress of Mr. Boujemaa, who is desperate for help. “I have to leave before August 31, otherwise I will be on the streets. I am looking, my wife is looking, we are visiting. I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel.”