Surging rent costs push families to choose between housing and food, says advocate

The Benedict Labre House is used to distributing food to people in need, but not like this.

Since the nearly 70-year-old day centre moved from Griffintown to Saint-Henri in 2018, organizers say the demand for its food bank has quadrupled. 

They've gone from handing out 50 food baskets a month to more than 200.

The community organization even had to set a monthly limit of one basket for each client to make sure everyone would be able to get food.

"We would like to be able to give them food every single week, but we just don't have enough," said clinical coordinator Francine Nadler.

Nadler says demand isn't just driven by homeless clients. She is convinced that rising costs of rent in the Sud-Ouest and across the city are making it harder for people to put food on the table.

"Places like this shouldn't even exist, right?" Nadler said, in reference to the food bank. "Food security is not supposed to be an issue in this city."

Earlier this month, the Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation reported that the vacancy rate in Montreal is at 1.5 per cent — a 15-year low.

The average cost of rent shot up by $45, from $796 to $841.

And 13.6 per cent of people living on the island of Montreal were in situations of food insecurity in 2015-16, defined as  as inadequate access to food because of financial constraints, according to Montreal Public Health.

"I would say 75 per cent of their income goes to pay their rent," Nadler said, in reference to many of the clients she meets.

"The rest gets eaten up by Hydro, or if they're lucky they get to have a phone, but then there's no money left for food."

'Falling through the cracks'

The Welcome Hall Mission's food distribution system is much larger, serving about 3,500 people every week. 

They opened up a second free grocery store in Montreal North in the fall of 2018.

"People who have a low income level sometimes have to choose between buying food, buying boots for their child or paying rent," said Welcome Hall Mission CEO Sam Watts.

Although there are a few dozen people on the Mission's waiting list, Watts says he hasn't noticed a sizeable increase in demand.

But he says the fact that the number of people in need is not going down is a major concern.

"Even though our economy is doing well, there are people who are falling between the cracks," Watts said. "Prices go up, so you're seeing things like rising rents and gentrification."

There have been increasing calls from tenants' rights groups for the province to put in stricter rent controls, to keep housing as affordable as possible and to help give people enough wiggle room to pay for other expenses, such as food.

Andrée Laforest, the provincial minister in charge of housing, is looking at ways of modernizing rent controls, a spokesperson told CBC News.

It is unclear, however, what those changes could look like.