Imane Benabid and her son Elias, (17 at the time, now 18) and daughter Djoumana, (4 at the time, now 5), in their living room in Montréal-Nord, a borough of Montreal on Feb. 26.Evan Buhler/The Globe and Mail
Quebec tenants living in areas with more visible minorities and immigrants face higher rates of disputed eviction demands, according to a Globe and Mail analysis that underscores their precarious housing situation.
The analysis, which compared data from Quebec’s housing tribunal with the 2021 Statistics Canada census, found that the areas with the highest rates of evictions appealed to the tribunal – the only circumstance in which eviction demands are recorded – tend, on average, to be more diverse.
The analysis looked at data by what are called forward sortation areas (FSAs), the first three characters of a building’s postal code.
The 10 FSAs with the highest disputed eviction demand rates, for instance, together have 48.6 per cent of visible minorities, three times Quebec’s overall share of 16.1 per cent. The 10 FSAs with the lowest rates have 3.9 per cent of visible minorities.
Housing advocates have long said that the power imbalance created by the shortage of apartments allows for discriminatory practices, though it’s not clear from the data what is driving the higher rates for areas with more visible minorities and immigrants. Experts and advocates say The Globe’s findings show the need for more education about – and stronger protection for – renters’ rights, along with more affordable housing.
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The Globe obtained data from Quebec’s housing tribunal through an access-to-information request. The data include more than 47,000 contested eviction demands from landlords between April 1, 2022, and March 31, 2023, along with the basic reasoning and the buildings’ FSAs.
Eviction demands are not recorded if tenants do not oppose them, leaving contested evictions the only way to measure where evictions appear to be more common. The tribunal said it could not provide data on the outcomes of those eviction demands, and declined to share case numbers and full postal codes because such information could “be used for unlawful ends.”
The proportion of people who are immigrants or visible minorities can explain about 20 per cent of the differences in eviction demand rates between FSAs. It is difficult, however, to tell the separate effects of these two factors because they are closely linked – many immigrants are also visible minorities.
Imane Benabid’s family is experiencing an eviction first-hand. Ms. Benabid lives with her husband, Ahmed, and their five children in Montréal-Nord, a borough on the northeastern part of the island. In December, their landlord told them she was taking back the apartment to house a relative.
In H1G, Ms. Benabid’s FSA, about 61 out of every 1,000 tenant households fought an eviction demand in court in 2022-23, among Quebec’s highest rates. The housing tribunal recorded 891 disputed eviction demands during that period in this area, the most in the province.
H1G is also one of Quebec’s most diverse FSAs, with more than half the population identifying as a visible minority and nearly 40 per cent as immigrants.
Ms. Benabid, who was born in Morocco, has had a hard time finding a new place. “I search and find nothing,” she said, with listings either too expensive or too far outside the city.
The results of the analysis do not mean that only diverse areas face high rates of disputed eviction demands. G7Z, for example, a Saguenay FSA, had 10 demands out of 130 tenant households, resulting in the province’s highest rate (77 per 1,000 households). Yet only 1.4 per cent of the population identifies as a visible minority.
In Quebec, evictions are allowed when tenants breach leases, for example by failing to pay rent on time. They are also allowed under limited circumstances for landlords to house themselves or a relative, or to undertake major work, though Éducaloi, a legal-information organization, says that “it is illegal for a landlord to evict a tenant simply to renovate.”
When repossessing a unit or planning major work, landlords must send tenants notices six months in advance for long-term leases. Tenants have a month to respond, and recent legislative changes mean that they are now presumed to oppose the eviction if they fail to do so. Landlords then have another month to apply for an eviction to the housing tribunal.
In May, Quebec also tabled a bill pausing certain evictions for up to three years.
The most common eviction reasons within the tribunal data were late rent payments or failing to perform another lease obligation, which together account for nearly 38,000 claims. About 2,700 asked for the repossession of tenants’ dwellings to house landlords or their relatives and more than 5,800 asked to cancel the lease for other, unspecified motives. Fewer than 1,000 demands were aimed at evicting tenants after lease expiration, subdividing or enlarging units, converting them to condos or otherwise changing their use.
A University of Montreal research group found last fall that, when landlords repossess a unit, the TAL sides with them in about two-thirds of cases.
Because evictions could be driven by tenants who have difficulty making rent, The Globe’s analysis controlled for the proportion of renters who spend more than 30 per cent of their income on housing. But this had little effect on the link between disputed eviction demands and the shares of immigrants and visible minorities.
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Further analysis found that more renters spending a large part of their income on housing was not a significant predictor of the disputed eviction demand rate, contrary to the proportion of visible minorities and immigrants.
Two UQAM professors reviewed The Globe’s methodology and data: Ünsal Özdilek, who studies real estate evaluation and markets, and Fabrice Larribe, an expert in statistics. Both said the results are accurate and warrant further research.
The data only covers 2022-23 because the tribunal declined to provide disputed eviction demands data for previous years. The Globe appealed this decision.
Mélissa White, a community organizer for the Montréal-Nord Housing Committee, said she was not surprised by The Globe’s findings. Historically affordable and diverse neighbourhoods such as Montréal-Nord are now facing an “explosion in real estate costs and the subsequent rent rises,” Ms. White said, just like the rest of the city.
Rent for two-bedroom apartments increased by 7.9 per cent in 2023, Montreal’s largest increase in decades, and the vacancy rate was at 1.5 per cent last year, according to the Canada Housing and Mortgage Corp.
In Montréal-Nord, Ms. White saw many cases of immigrant tenants seeking the housing committee’s help because new buyers were trying to evict them to increase rent and make a profit – sometimes using questionable tactics.
“Newly arrived people are often more vulnerable and there are owners who will take advantage of this because they do not know their rights,” Ms. White said. She said tenants were pressed into signing lease-cancellation agreements, for example, and landlords purposefully accepted rent late to try and evict renters.
Ms. White said an official, public rent registry coupled with mandatory rent control could help by removing the incentives for landlords to evict. Non-profit organization Vivre en Ville maintains an unofficial, voluntary Quebec rent registry online, but there is no province-led equivalent. Landlords in Quebec are free to increase rent how they see fit, but tenants can oppose excessive increases and force landlords to apply for rent adjustments with the housing tribunal.
Ms. White added that a large increase in the supply of public, affordable housing is also needed.
Fo Niemi, executive director of the Center for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR), a Montreal-based anti-discrimination organization that assists tenants in housing disputes, said that, based on his experience, people waiting in line at the tribunal are “overwhelmingly people of colour.”
Mr. Niemi said the most common issues bringing tenants to the tribunal are landlords refusing to do maintenance, excessively increasing rent, or attempting “renovictions,” meaning illegally evicting tenants to do superficial renovations and then increasing the rent.
He said The Globe’s findings underscore the need to compile and publish demographic data behind evictions, which could shed light on discriminatory patterns against minorities or seniors, for example, and be used to support legal cases against landlords.
In a 2020 inclusion survey, the City of Montreal found that immigrants and racialized people “face significant housing vulnerability issues” such as a lower rate of access to property, more unsanitary conditions and more difficulties when looking for housing, including discrimination.
Avi Friedman, who teaches at McGill University’s School of Architecture and studies housing affordability, said that many racialized people might have a precarious immigration status and, if they recently settled, limited knowledge of their tenancy rights. This, coupled with financial hardships, could explain part of their housing woes, he said.
Dr. Friedman said solutions include building more affordable housing units and ensuring that immigrants receive information about tenants’ rights and housing resources.
Quebec Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing spokesperson Annie Fournier said the government is working to address the affordable housing shortage through investments and regulatory changes. She added that people suspecting discriminatory practices can undertake legal action.
City of Montreal spokesperson Sara-Eve Tremblay said the city runs tenants’ rights awareness campaigns in several languages and supports the creation of affordable housing through investments. Several boroughs also further restricted eviction rules to protect tenants from subdivisions, she said.