To satisfy the demand for social and affordable housing, no less than 2,000 new units would have to be built in Vaudreuil-Soulanges alone. Currently, more than a hundred Vaudreuil-Soulangeois are on the waiting list of the Office régional de l'habitation de Vaudreuil-Soulanges (ORHVS) for one of the 254 housing units administered by the regional organization.

One of the main reasons for this deficit is, unsurprisingly, the ORHVS's tenuous funding, which, it should be remembered, comes from the Société d'habitation du Québec (SHQ).

"For 2024, the SHQ has allocated a 0.9% increase to the ORHVS, while its contract costs have risen between 15% and 40%. What this means is that there's a tax transfer directly onto the shoulders of the citizens of Vaudreuil-Soulanges, because the difference will be borne by them. And all this is caused by the fact that the government is not investing in the basic needs to maintain the current housing stock. We're not even into development. We're really just in the business of maintaining the current stock," explained MRC Assistant Director General Simon Bellemare at the MRC council meeting held this Wednesday, January 24. 

The SHQ budget allocated to the ORHVS does not cover the salaries of the regional organization's employees, nor does it allocate human resources to ensure the development of social and affordable housing on the territory. 

During the meeting, the mayors unanimously adopted a resolution calling for a formal request to the SHQ for a significant increase in the operating budgets of Quebec's housing authorities. 

"The SHQ's operating methods are totally obsolete. They've been giving us 0.9% increases to put buildings and apartments in order for years. We make requests, but we're told there's no budget. On the other hand, we have the government asking us to put people into housing. At one point, we found ourselves with 17 available units that we couldn't fix because we didn't have the budget. They give us peanuts. They're still in the 80s. At some point, you really have to apply some pressure to show that this is abuse," added Vaudreuil-Dorion mayor Guy Pilon.

"The problem is not unique to Vaudreuil-Soulanges. At the assembly of MRCs, it's the same battle. The problem of underfunding comes up again and again. As Mr. Pilon says, at one point we found ourselves with 17 units available, but a little over $200,000 short of what we needed to do the work. We had to pull out all the stops to get anything done. But that summer, we had a family on the street. We couldn't even accommodate them in our housing units, which might have been available if we'd had adequate funding," lamented MRC prefect and Rivière-Beaudette mayor Patrick Bousez.

In the resolution adopted on January 24, the elected representatives of Vaudreuil-Soulanges are calling for an increase in the budgets allocated to the housing offices, in line with the real costs generated by inflation and the needs caused by the housing crisis.

The elected officials are also asking that each housing office be granted a resource dedicated to the construction of social and affordable housing, and that "the millions from the Canada-Quebec agreement signed in October be disbursed as quickly as possible to enable housing offices and housing organizations to build social and affordable housing as quickly as possible".

The resolution, which will be forwarded to the Regroupement des offices d'habitation du Québec, all the province's MRCs, as well as the Ministers of Housing and Municipal Affairs, France-Élaine Duranceau and Andrée Laforest, and the MNAs for Vaudreuil and Soulanges, Marie-Claude Nichols and Marilyne Picard.