Montreal Nurse Stuck in the HLM Struggle Bus: Can't Even Afford to Level Up 😫

The Deets

Alright, fam, so there's this nurse in Montreal named Sally, right? She's clocking in those hours, pulling in a solid $60K a year. You'd think she'd be chilling in her own spot, but nah. She's stuck in her social housing unit (HLM) 'cause rent prices are straight-up robbery. She got her fam under her care, too.

Here's the tea: in Quebec, social housing rent is like, 25% of your income. Which sounds chill, but for Sally, that's almost half her paycheck vanishing into thin air. She's paying $1500 a month for her three-bedroom. Meanwhile, a similar crib on the market is pushing $2000. Big yikes!

Trying to bounce is even more of a headache. Landlords want tenants with perfect credit, no pets, and zero drama with the housing court. It's rough out here! The waitlist for social housing is sitting at 13,175 households, so the struggle is real for mad people. If Sally was applying now, she wouldn't even qualify with her current salary. Talk about a bruh moment.

Back in the day, social housing was supposed to be a come-up, like a stepping stone. But now? It's more like quicksand. Quebec dipped out on building HLMs in the 90s, leaving us like 80,000 units short. Now, they're pushing programs that hook up private developers, but those aren't even helping low-income families like they used to. So, while they building these new units, not enough of the units are being offered to families who are struggling the most. That's messed up, for real.