Actions by Ottawa and Quebec to address the housing crisis in 2023 are insufficient, due to a lack of planning, the Association of Construction and Housing Professionals of Quebec (APCHQ) has estimated.
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Lacking a plan, the association has difficulty explaining its goals, especially for affordable housing.
“It's hard to decide where to put it when you don't know where to put the effort. What do we need to work on more? In which area? What kind of housing? Because it's not true that the needs are the same and equal everywhere across the province,” said APCHQ in an interview with LCN. announced Isabelle Demers, vice president of strategic development, public affairs and innovation for
Earlier this month, APCHQ awarded the federal and provincial governments an overall grade of C for initiatives implemented this year.
“What is happening now is very worrying. We may have a housing crisis, a crisis of access to property, insufficient supply and one of the first generations to have no access to property and now, becoming a home owner is not an option. Being a tenant is, in many cases, an obligation,” Ms. Demers maintains.
While some government measures are considered ideal by APCHQ, they are often insufficient to lift Quebec out of its housing crisis.
For example, the $1.8 billion announced to build social and affordable housing is welcome, but APCHQ insists on building 1.2 million homes to meet demand by 2030.
“It's clear that we're way off the mark at the moment. That should worry us,” says Isabelle Demers.
This calls for additional measures to be built faster and better in a denser manner and according to clear goals.
Watch the video above to watch the full interview.