Invitation: a festive march for housing accessibility

Accessibility to housing is a fundamental right. Faced with a housing crisis which has characteristics specific to the Gaspé region, an autonomous committee is inviting the population to a festive march on Saturday, August 6 at the Horatio LeBoutillier house, starting at 2:00 p.m.

The right to housing does not take a vacation in Summer.

While the Airbnb platform lists more than 92 apartments and houses available for tourists on a weekly basis, while calls for help to find housing are multiplying on several search groups and while more than 972 housing units, including 421 adapted units, must be built by 2026, it is clear that the question of housing is a priority issue. Come and discuss this issue, get informed and remind the various political authorities that having viable, healthy, year-round housing is a basic right, not a privilege.

Festive march for housing accessibility: the right to housing does not take a vacation in the summer!

Where: Gathering at Horatio LeBoutillier House (at the end of the Birthplace of Canada site, across from the SAQ)

When: Saturday, August 6th at 2pm

Facebook event: https://fb.me/e/1H1FXjua1

Course of action

A symbolic action and a speech will announce the beginning of the march. At the end of the march, participants will be invited to take part in a discussion on their situation and on possible solutions.

In case of bad weather, the event will be postponed to Sunday, August 7.

Some facts about housing affordability in the Gaspé

• The average salary for the Gaspésie-les-Îles region is approximately $30,000. This places the region in 13th place out of 17 regions in Quebec for its per capita disposable income.

• As the report, for the region, produced by Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton points out: "many households pay too much rent for their ability to pay."

• According to 2016 Canadian census data, 12% of the population of the City of Gaspé spends more than half of its income on housing.

• In 2021, the vacancy rate for housing in Gaspé has dropped below 1%: it is 0.8%.

• 15% of Gaspesian tenants must leave their dwelling during the tourist season;

• The new dwellings built by private developers are too often offered at extravagant prices. The region is experiencing an important real estate overheating;

• The problem has been known for a long time, it is not unique to the pandemic;

• The slight population increase of the last few years cannot explain, by itself, the current crisis, since, with 17,500 people in the Côte-de-Gaspé, we are still far from the 25,000 who lived on the territory in the early 1980s.

• Residents looking to rent in the region are left with very little choice, once the houses rented to tourists, transient workers, or used as second or third homes by people who only live there a few weeks a year are removed from the market. In the Côte-de-Gaspé, nearly 900 private dwellings are used for purposes other than housing "regular residents" (Statistics Canada, 2021).

Safer space

The people organizing the march and the rally will do everything to make it inclusive: families are welcome, the atmosphere will be caring and no ageist, transphobic, homophobic, sexist, racist, ableist or other discriminating comments will be tolerated.

• Facebook page of the Comité Autonome pour l'Accessibilité au Logement: https://www.facebook.com/comiteautonomelogementcotedegaspe

• Website: https://caalcotedegaspe.wixsite.com/caal