MONTREAL TO BEEF UP INSPECTIONS FOR RENTAL UNITS

The city announced on Thursday it would spend $3 million to inspect 8,000 buildings and 130,000 apartment units over five years. A further $1.5 million over three years will be given to community groups that help tenants advocate for their rights.

Sourias described having had to intervene for a tenant on Walkley Rd., the same street where the city made the announcement Thursday. In that case, the tenant complained to his landlord about a leaky ceiling and an infestation of mice. After the repairs were done, the ceiling leaked again.

“Now, because we saw vermin, the file was passed on to the central city’s housing department, so all the units in the building will be inspected,” she said.

Sourias said the city has undertaken the repairs itself and will be billing the landlord. The infusion of new money will allow inspectors to conduct more inspection blitzes in the coming months and years.

“These new measures send a strong message to property owners to take care of their tenants, because we are in a housing crisis and any apartment that is lost to a lack of sanitation and lack of security is one too much,” Sourias said.

The city also hopes the beefed up inspections will prevent buildings from falling into states of disrepair, and thus require tenants to move out while repairs are done.

“There are all kinds of renovictions,” Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante said. “We have a lot of rules in place to minimize them already, like limiting the conversions of apartments. But we have seen landlords saying they have to evict tenants to do some maintenance, and they end up doing more work and then jacking up the rents. With this measure, what we’re trying to do is make sure landlords to the work needed in time, based on real needs and that can protect tenants.”

Thursday’s announcement was one of several the city has made in recent weeks ahead of the July 1 moving day. On that day, dozens of families are often left without suitable housing — a phenomenon that appears to be worsening every year. Last year, 115 Montreal households were without a home on July 1. Quebec-wide, 500 households were affected. Despite all the measures in place and new housing units announced, Plante said it will take years to alleviate the housing crisis, because it has been years in the making. She declined to say how many households are expected to be homeless this coming July 1.

The city’s opposition, however, said the Plante administration is moving far too slowly on cracking down on unsafe or unsanitary apartments.

“While cases of insalubrity are increasing, we denounce the fact that it has taken the Plante administration almost seven years to come to the conclusion that more resources are needed to inspect apartments.” said opposition leader Aref Salem.

He added that the city is only acting in a prevention mode and doing very little to punish delinquent landlords. Salem said the city seems to have abandoned its plan to create a certification for responsible landlords.