“We’re going to hit a wall on July 1 like we’ve never hit before,” warns Sylvain Mathieu, regional director for the Quebec association of construction and housing professionals (ACPHQ). “Many people are going to have difficulty finding apartments. There’s going to be an unprecedented housing crisis, not just in Sherbrooke.”
“It’s going to be worse than ever. Affordability. Availability. It’s going to be a very, very, very, big problem,” Mathieu says.
“Last July was very difficult. Several families, it took months before they could be housed,” Mathieu remembers. “That’s why the community sector is also crying out. In the private sector, housing availability was down to 0.9 percent (in 2021). But social housing, it was the same. 0.9 per cent vacancy rate.”
Sherbrooke tenant’s association (ALS) spokesperson Normand Couture offered a similar memory last November during an interview about the encampment under the Joffre Bridge.
Last summer, the ALS counted at least 93 households unable to secure housing on Jul. 1, 2021. “Among those tenants, there were people with low income, but there were also workers. This crisis is no longer affecting people with low incomes or on welfare. It is reaching middle class workers who are unable to find somewhere to live because of the high cost of housing,” Couture told The Record.
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