Three people during the program agreed to share their reality and talk about the steps they are taking to find housing public placeMonday.
The housing shortage has become more acute this year, particularly in Alma and Saguenay, the two worst affected municipalities in the region.
In Alma, the vacancy rate fell from 0.9% in 2020 to 0.7% in 2021, according to the latest data from Mortgage and Housing Canada (CMHC). In Saguenay, the vacancy rate was 1.7% in 2021, compared to 2.8% the previous year.
camp last refuge
For Rebecca Gautier, 20, as well as her mother and younger sister, the move is getting closer. They should leave 5 in 1Verse mayo.
The family is looking for a 5″ or 4″ apartment that fits their budget and allows them to house their dogs. They are currently paying $1,025 per month and are looking for a $600-$800 apartment in Chicoutimi or Jonquière.
Currently, we don’t find much. Sure, it gets found occasionally, but it’s really well above our budget. Otherwise, animals are not accepted
Sorry, Rebecca, less than two weeks before moving on.
They multiply the steps in vain. Sometimes we send messages, and we don’t even get an answer. Or we were just told it was already rented, she explains. We don’t have time to visit when we were told we can go visit. It’s really flat.
The situation is causing stress on the young woman.
” I would say that I am very worried, and I am afraid to find myself on the street. »
She and her mother began to think of scenarios, if they could not find housing for 1Verse mayo. Maybe you’ll find a place to camp while you’re waiting to find something else, she says. Because we, the landlord, have already found a new tenant. Or maybe a month or two extension…
Moving to a specialized category
Nathalie Trotier is in a similar situation. A worker at the Alzheimer’s Association in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean must leave her apartment in Junquiere to settle in Chicoutimi so that her eight-year-old daughter, who has special needs, can access a specialist class. At the school service center in Rives-du-Saguenay.
The resources were not enough to keep her daughter going to school in Jonquière.
Until I get proof of my address [à Chicoutimi]she is not officially registered, so I have the stress of looking for housing, and confirming that she is not registered
she explained.
Apartments are “expensive” in Chicoutimi, notes a tenant looking for a new apartment.
Photo: Radio Canada
However, the apartments very expensive
In Chicoutimi, she notes. The requests are numerous and many tenants are trying to seduce the landlords.
” It causes a lot of stress, a lot of insomnia. […] If we don’t respond to ads right away, 20, 30, and 40 pass us by. Then sometimes, we go to visit, and then they tell us there’s someone in front of us and that they prefer that person. »
She’s visited dozens of homes so far and sent countless calls and messages in response to online ads. Natalie Trotier does not intend to give up. I won’t give up for my daughter, that’s for sure.
increased tension
Diane Simard, of San Felician, is looking for 5 cents, or 6 cents, when 4 cents at $900 a month became too small for her and her husband, as well as their two daughters and their dog.
The family hopes to find an apartment between $600 and $800. Because with everything that happens in life, it becomes difficult to make ends meet
they share.
The only options found are within an hour’s drive of their place of work. Here, in Saint-Félicien, we find nothing. We find 3 ½, again, 4 is small, but in fact we find nothing
as you say.
The pressure on family members who are planning to apply for an extension or stay with their apartment owner if they are unable to find a new home.
There, we have a little bit of anxiety and worry now, because surely with the two kids and everything, we don’t want to end up on the street, confirms Diane Simard, who has been working at a center since early childhood. We still believe in good things that happen at the right time. But it was starting to get stressful.
