Calling it a matter of human dignity, Mayor Denis Coderre, flanked by Côte-des-Neiges-NDG borough Mayor Russell Copeman, vowed on Monday to crack down on Montreal landlords who fail to provide sanitary housing for their tenants.
"Everybody deserves to have a roof above their head, but not at any costs," Coderre said. "It is our job to protect the people."
The announcement comes following a report from the Montreal Public Health Department that says 38 percent of rental housing units in Côte-des-Neiges-NDG with children between the ages of six months and 12 years have either mould or excessive humidity, conditions that could lead to asthma.
Coderre pledged to provide the boroughs with more inspectors and to create a registry where tenants can alert the city to inadequate living conditions.
Community groups have long said that adding inspectors alone will not fix the problem, but that inspectors need to have more power issue fines and put pressure on non-complaint property owners to make changes.
"The vast majority of inspections, the end result is a correction," Copeman said, claiming that only 15 percent of landlords who receive visits from the city fall into what he called the "delinquent" category.
"I understand the impatience, but our actions are based on jurisprudence and we do our best, in a society that is governed by the rule of law, to make these corrections get done as fast as possible," Copeman continued. "The object for us is to get the improvements made, not to end up in court. If we just go ahead with fines without a reasonable delay, we take the issue to municipal court, and we lose."
In order to take extra action against landlords who refuse to comply, in July, Côte-des-Neiges-NDG became the first borough in the city to authorize a $250,000 emergency fund that allows the city to step in and make repairs to rental units where tenants' health and safety are at risk. The city would cover the costs of the repairs up front and then would demand repayment from landlords after the work is complete.
"It hasn't been used yet," Copeman said, "but, what I've been told by my borough services is that on two occasions they threatened the landlord to use the fund and they said, fine I'll do it. The mere existence of the fund has accelerated repair work in two instances."
Coderre hopes to be able to establish one of these funds in every borough with the eventual goal of harmonizing them under central control.
The pair also pledged to help low income families trying to purchase a home, announcing their commitment to building 5000 units of social housing during his next mandate. A new proposal tabled in city council would double the number of Montreal families eligible to receive homebuyer subsidies and would triple the amount of money available to them.
"[It is] a more generous, simpler, and more accessible program to acquire a home in Montreal," Copeman said. "We need to retain families here and make sure that Montreal is an attractive city for families."