‘Surviving, not thriving’: Montreal nurse stuck in social housing despite full-time job

A Montreal nurse says she can't afford to leave her low-income housing unit despite working a full-time job. (Scott Prouse/CTV News)

Sally, a single mother caring for her 75-year-old father, says she can’t leave her Montreal social housing unit even though she’s improved her financial situation and would like to rent or buy a place of her own.

She moved into her low-rental unit, known as an HLM, in Lachine 13 years ago. CTV News is using a pseudonym to protect her identity and housing situation.

Now working full-time as a licensed practical nurse, Sally says she still can’t afford a place on the private market, and even her HLM costs more than she expected.

“When you compare my income to my real-life situation, I’m below the poverty line. But if you check my income tax, I’m making, you know, $60,000 a year,” she says.

Experts say Sally’s story shows how hard the housing crisis is hitting Montreal – people with good salaries are stuck in subsidized housing, which is in limited supply.

When 25 per cent becomes half your pay

In Quebec, government-subsidized housing costs 25 per cent of a tenant’s income, but it’s calculated on gross, not net, earnings for working tenants. For Sally, that means nearly half her take-home pay goes to rent, though it’s still cheaper than anything on the private market.

When she first moved into the HLM as a nursing student and single mom, she paid about $500 a month. It was a lifeline at the time, when a two-bedroom cost around $1,200.

“We were just surviving. We weren’t really, you know, living,” she says.

Today, a similar apartment in Montreal can cost more than $2,000.

• READ MORE: You need to make $33 an hour to afford a one-bedroom in Montreal

As her career advanced, Sally dreamed of leaving social housing. Before the pandemic, she even hired a real estate agent to start house-hunting. But when COVID hit, those plans collapsed.

Her rent has since climbed as her career progressed and her salary increased. She now pays $1,500 a month for a three-bedroom apartment she shares with her 20-year-old son, her father, and two cats.

“While rent here should be 25 per cent of your earnings, that is not what I am actually paying. So even with my great job, we are still not thriving,” she says.

Still, it’s the best deal she and her family can get. A similar apartment in Lachine without a lease transfer can run $2,000 to $3,000 a month, plus heating and parking.

Thousands on the waitlist

Sally says good apartments get snapped up immediately by tenants with great credit, no pets, and no file at the housing tribunal — a profile she doesn’t quite fit.

“Landlords want all sorts of information about tenants these days that people like myself, who have made improvements to their lives and want to move on, are stuck,” she says. “If not, greed motivates them to hike their prices.”

Even for working people in low-income housing, she says, “the field isn’t so level.”

• READ MORE: Quebec landlords refusing tenants over TAL cases

According to the Office municipal d’habitation de Montréal (OMHM), which manages most HLMs in the city, there are 13,175 households on the social housing waitlist.

A ‘springboard’ now isn’t enough

Patricia Viannay, coordinator at the federation representing HLM tenants (FLHLMQ), says that with her current salary, Sally wouldn’t be eligible if she applied for social housing today — but she can’t afford to leave.

As a result, Viannay says, she’s staying in a unit that could have gone to someone with a lower income.

Basing rent on gross income is standard across government programs, she adds, from subsidized daycare to the new federal dental care plan.

If Sally were to find a unit in the private sector, she could spend 60 to 70 per cent of her income on rent, says Viannay.

“Social housing is normally a perfect springboard for people who remain on low incomes for all sorts of reasons. They stay in their homes,” she says. “Then, if they manage to improve their economic situation, the rules are designed so that you can move on to something else. But now, with the housing crisis, there is nothing else.”

Two decades ago, the advocates rarely saw such cases.

“There was a time when you could easily get a 5 1/2 for $1,000,” says Viannay. “So it’s clear that paying $1,200 for a 5 1/2 — because there was consensus on the 25 per cent of gross income — didn’t really make sense.”

• READ MORE: Montreal’s vacancy rate is going up, but so is rent

She says tenants used to have three years after an income increase to save enough to move or buy.

“Before, that was possible. Now, with the current housing crisis, people are stuck,” she says. “But that’s not the fault of the public housing program. It’s the fault of the increased cost of living, the housing crisis, and rents that have doubled.”

Decades of underbuilding

Quebec stopped building HLMs in the 1990s after Ottawa transferred responsibility to the provinces. In the 30 years since, about 80,000 social housing units that should have been built never were.

Viannay stresses that a strong social housing stock serves to stabilize rents across the board.

Today, most new affordable housing is managed by non-profits through government subsidies, while Quebec still oversees older HLMs.

In 2022, the province axed its social housing program, AccèsLogis, replacing it with the Programme d’habitation abordable Québec (PHAQ), which is geared toward private developers.

Quebec’s auditor general slammed the government’s approach in a May report, estimating about 580,000 households could qualify for social housing.

Under newer programs like the PHAQ, only 26 per cent of units are allocated for low-income households, compared to 55 per cent under older models, according to the auditor general.

A spokesperson for the Housing Ministry said 7,500 units were approved through the PHAQ and 600 have been built to date.

• READ MORE: Quebec to allow roommates in low-income housing

Vinnay stresses that simply building more without creating social housing will not solve the crisis.

Reports show it could actually make the situation worse as new, expensive units stay empty while competition for affordable homes stays high and rents keep going up.

Viannay says the problem isn’t the public housing system itself, but a lack of political will to expand it.

But for people like Sally, the need is urgent.

“It doesn’t encourage people to reach for anything better,” she says. “Because when you go out and you start to try to do something, it’s just so crazy.”