If elected in November, Ensemble Montréal Leader Soraya Martinez Ferrada is promising to make it easier for residents who are struggling to find housing during moving season.
She outlined three measures during a press conference on Wednesday aimed at preventing tenants from ending up without housing or having to live in hotels for months in the aftermath of July 1.
That includes investing $1 million to empower community organizations and expand successful housing initiatives.
“No family should be in a hotel. A family with kids should be in a home,” Martinez Ferrada said.
The mayoral hopeful also promised to create a housing bank, in collaboration with community organizations such as Welcome Hall Mission, to reserve the most affordable units on the market and transfer the leases to nearly 100 households without housing on July 1.
She also promised to create a municipal rental registry and to reinforce La Maison du Père’s rent assistance bank. This program provides interest-free loans covering up to three months of unpaid rent and it’s repayable over five years.
These measures build on recent proposals made by Martinez Ferrada and her team to increase housing availability, including abolishing the “Bylaw for a Diverse Metropolis,” which reportedly slows housing construction in Montreal; reducing red tape and accelerating permit approvals; speeding up the construction of social and affordable housing on city-owned land; minimizing construction costs; and providing better support to non-profits that are developing affordable and social housing.
The director of La Maison du Père, Jaelle Begarin, said that during a recent nine-month period, they helped 60 people avoid homelessness.
“I think the Quebec and municipal government have to do their best in (homeless) prevention, because we can stop the evictions if we work together,” Begarin told CityNews.
Martinez Ferrada offered a message of support to Montrealers who are experiencing stress during the moving period.
“Every single Montrealer needs to live with dignity, and it’s a responsibility to make sure we help with that. I tell them courage and resilience, for sure,” she said. “There’s a number they can call, there (are) community organizations there to help, and making sure that we can help everybody — make sure that they find the home quickly.
“But I do want to make sure that next year we are working on real solutions to make sure that we prevent this for the first of July in 2026.”