Sherbrooke youth testify to urgent need for affordable housing
By William Crooks
Local Journalism Initiative
The mounting housing crisis in Sherbrooke is hitting young people especially hard, as outlined in a press conference held on May 21 by the Concertation logement Sherbrooke (CLS) and the Table de concertation jeunesse de Sherbrooke (TCJS). Speakers including housing advocates, community workers, a local property owner, and a young tenant highlighted the need for urgent, collective action to provide stable, affordable housing for youth in precarious situations.
“This is not just a housing issue—it’s a question of basic rights,” said François Danis of Tremplin 16-30, who called for housing to be treated as a fundamental right on par with health care and education. He urged municipal authorities to commit to having 20 per cent of rental units in Sherbrooke outside the private market, through social housing, cooperatives, and non-profits.
Danis also called for structural changes, including rent control measures, abolishing lease loopholes that allow unlimited increases in new constructions, and the creation of a permanent municipal housing committee.
The personal stakes of the crisis were brought home in a harrowing testimony by Joe Hawthorn, a young man who spent months in unsafe, unaffordable living conditions before ending up in a shelter. “I stayed in a violent shared apartment because I had nowhere else to go. My mental and physical health deteriorated until I experienced several suicidal crises,” Hawthorn said. He eventually took an overpriced and poorly located unit, spending more than 75 per cent of his income on rent.
“There are no direct bus lines to the city centre evenings or weekends. I’m completely socially isolated,” he said. Although he later qualified for a rent supplement, the long wait left him with mounting debt and damaged credit. “The suffering of people waiting for housing is unnecessary,” he said. “We know the solutions—rent control, social housing—but profits are being prioritized over life.”
