Media Advisory
Ottawa, March 18, 2024 – The Front d’action populaire en réaménagement urbain (FRAPRU), a Quebec-based housing rights umbrella group will make noise with almost 200 tenants and members of housing rights organizations and their allies in front of the Westin Hotel where the National Housing Conference, organized by the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), to challenge the federal Minister of Housing, one month before the budget. At a time when the housing crisis is wreaking havoc in Quebec, and across Canada, the National Housing Strategy launched in 2017 has so far had little success in directing billions of dollars in federal funding towards projects that meet the needs of low- and moderate-income tenants.
While the stated aim of the conference is to hold « a national conversation on restoring housing affordability and accelerating construction », FRAPRU will point out that identified structuring measures are needed to get the most under-housed tenants out of the crisis and will call on the Trudeau government to urgently direct the billions still to come from its Strategy towards them. In particular, the group will be calling on the federal government to allocate, as early as its April 16 budget, all funds from the Canadian Housing Strategy to the development of social housing, outside the private market, with a view to significantly increasing the share occupied by social housing in the rental housing stock.
In summary
When : Monday, March 18 from noon to 1pm
Where : in front of the Westin Hotel, 11, Colonel, By Dr, Ottawa
What : Rally, slogans and speeches
Who : Will speak :
- Véronique Laflamme, spokeperson for FRAPRU
- Patricia Viannay, coordinator for the Fédération des locataires de HLM du Québec
- Carolyn Whitzman, Adjunct Professor, Department of geography, environment and geomatics, University of Ottawa and expert Advisor, Housing Assessment Resource Tools
- Laura Murphy, Senior Housing Policy Advisor, Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario (ACTO)
- Sébastien Laliberté, Community organizer, Regroupement Information Logement de Pointe-Saint-Charles, a housing committee involved in a citizens’ battle to redevelop surplus federal land
Press briefing : FRAPRU will hold a press briefing after the speeches around 12h30. A press release will be posted in the Press section of the FRAPRU website around 12:15pm.
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For more information and interviews:
Catherine Lussier, FRAPRU : 514 231-2309 (cell.)