'Condofication' of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve sparks gentrification concerns

After the Plateau and Saint-Henri,Hochelaga-Maisonneuveis the next Montreal neighbourhoodto be at the centre of debates over gentrification.

Like Saint-Henri, Hochelaga-Maisonneuve has seen an increase in high-earning households in recent years, accompanied by vandalism and protest.

• Hochelaga-Maisonneuve vandalism could be motivated by anti-capitalist sentiment
• St-Henri looting puts spotlight on Montreal neighbourhood's gentrification

Hochelaga-Maisonneuve has traditionally been considered a low-income neighbourhood. The borough is third, afterVille-Marie and the Southwest, in terms of social housing units,according to a 2014 study by the city.

But since 2010 the number of households earning more than $80,000 has doubled from 10 per cent of the population to 20 per cent, according to the merchant group SDC Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.

That matches a pushto promote the borough as up-and-coming in campaigns by Tourism Montreal, the city andthe borough itself.

Even the U.K.'s The Guardian newspaper considersthe neighbourhood as the city's next hip spot.

"Hochelaga-Maisonneuve in the city's east is hotly tipped and has even got a silly nickname to prove it: Ho-Ma," the newspaper remarked in 2010.

Seeking to conserve neighbourhood

For some, Ho-Ma has managed to benefit from the influx of the high-income earnerswithout turning its back on long-time residents.

"It's all a question of balance," said Jimmy Vigneux, the director of SDC Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.

"We're in a neighbourhood that's being transformed. There are condos being built as well as social housing and I think that's the ideal,conserving equilibrium."

But for othersthis "equilibrium" is just the beginning of the kind of gentrification the Plateau-Mont-Royal saw 30 years ago, and which left property there unaffordablefor lower-income Montrealers.

A social housing committee in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, BAILS, is speaking out against what they call the "condofication" of theborough.

As Hochelaga-Maisonneuveattracts more residents, they fear the social housing supply is not keeping up.

"It takes 100 condos to have even a small percentage of social housing units built, so we're always at the mercy of the private market," BAILS spokespersonmilieLecavaliertold Radio-Canada.

Anti-gentrification violence

About a dozen acts of vandalism have hit businessesin the boroughin recent months,which some blame on anarchists and anti-gentrification groups.

Some examples include a wave ofvandalisminFebruarywhich left at least three stores with smashed windows and covered in paint. In April, about 20 maskedprotestors clashed with police, throwingMolotovcocktails at them.

• Montreal rental cost comparisons

Saint-Henrihas experienced a similar wave of vandalism, notably when a group of masked individuals looted a boutique grocery store.

Housing activists and local politicians there have been calling for more public funding of social housing and new zoning rules that would allow for stricterrental controls.

Without such measures, it is feared long-term residents of gentrifying neighbourhoods will be forced from their homes, or become increasingly unable to find consumer options they can afford.

"Something can be done about gentrification,"saidFranois Saillant, a spokesman forFront d'action populaire en ramnagement urbain (FRAPRU), a housing group that has been fighting gentrification since the 1980s.

"But in order forsomething to be doneit takes important struggles that force governments totake action."

• How Montreal's St-Henri neighbourhood has become a battleground in Canada's gentrification debate