Chelsey St. Pierre – The Suburban LJI Reporter
The West Island’s tenant action committee ‘Comité d’Action des Locataires de l’Ouest-de-l’Île’ (CALODI) launched its second annual in-person and online workshops to educate tenants on their rights and obligations.
In the West Island, 20 per cent of housing units are rentals. The West Island is home to four percent of Montreal’s social housing and it is difficult for tenants to find adequate and affordable housing.
Tenant action coordinator Lily Martin assisted the Table de Quartier Sud de l’Ouest-de-l’Île (TQSOI) with its community consultation workshops. The workshops helped identify issues important to the community in order to develop solution plans. The issues surrounding renters in the West Island were significant and seemed to be missing a category of its own. CALODI was initiated to address those issues by educating renters and advocating on their behalf.
“Tenants have rights codified in the Civil Code of Quebec, but it is up to them to inform themselves of their rights and defend their rights, often against significant barriers and obstacles,” Martin told The Suburban.
The workshops address ongoing issues, particularly rent increases which Martin says makes up 30% or more of the general inquiries.
“Landlords are allowed to present tenants with lease renewal notices that omit key information, namely their right to refuse rental increases or other lease modifications. If tenants do refuse their increase, they are often intimidated by the prospect of having to go to the Tribunal Administratif du Logement (TAL), which is quite far from the West Island,” Martin explained.
She says that the imbalance between landlords and tenants during lease renewal negotiations is primarily due to the lack of transparency as tenants do not have access to the landlords expenses. “They either have to ‘take their word for it’ or do their best to estimate what is fair based on incomplete information.”
New issues may arise each year, which is why the workshops are to be repeated annually. “There have been significant tax increases in the West Island this year and these increases trickle down into tenants’ rent,” Martin explained. Data obtained in 2021 from the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal (CMM) showed that the number of low-income tenants who spend 30 per cent or more of their income on rent is higher than the City of Montreal average in multiple West Island municipalities. On average, it reported that renters in Dollard-des-Ormeaux spent 33.1 per cent of their income on rent, 32.1 per cent in Beaconsfield, 33.9 in Saint-Anne-de-Bellevue and 43.2 per cent in Pointe-Claire.
The workshops will take place in Pierrefonds on January 15 (French) and January 29 (English) and in Pointe-Claire on January 16 (English) and January 20 (French) and online on January 26 (English) and February 2 (French). n