Co-op bonanza

>> Who will grab the dividends of government-funded co-ops?

by NOEMI LOPINTO

If you've ever passed up the opportunity to live in one of Quebec's housing cooperatives, you might want to take yourself outside and start kicking yourself firmly in the ass. Come 2004, a significant portion of the province's oldest cooperatives--already considered housing bargains--will be fully paid off. This means that those who call any co-op built around 1973 "home" could soon enjoy near-rent-free living.

Yet some complain that despite government funding and a well-intentioned bureaucracy, co-ops are free to exclude any resident they consider undesirable. In fact, the entire future of Quebec's co-ops appears to be uncertain, since officials admit they don't know what will happen when co-ops can no longer claim to be collecting monthly mortgage payments from their residents.

"Anything could happen, we really have no idea," says Pierre Chartier of the Fédération des coopératives d'habitation de l'ile de Montréal (FECHIM). "What's for sure is that the co-ops will still be collective," he says. "The apartments will not be rent-free because repairs will always be necessary. What we need to know is how the co-ops will use the money. We fought for 20 years for low-cost housing and we don't want them to become like condominiums."

Applicant snubbed

Although the movement's focus is supposedly access to low rent for low-income families, Sandra Scott feels the cooperatives are strangely inaccessible. The West Island resident says she can barely afford her $685 rent yet has been unable to get into a co-op in spite of seven years of trying.

"Something feels fishy when you have to wait that long," says Scott. "We are two deaf adults on welfare with two children and they tell me that there are no subsidies left. I find it hard to believe nothing is available." Scott's attempts to gain entry to a co-op have led her to suspect that cooperatives have become havens for upwardly mobile couples, to eventually be replaced by other upwardly mobiles. "Why haven't I heard from them?" she asks. "I can't help but feel that it is because we are two deaf adults. And yet they're supposed to help low-income families."

Every cooperative is autonomous and answers only to its own internal committees. There are no affirmative-action-type quotas for single-parent families, minorities or handicapped members within the cooperative constitution. This means that applicants like Sandra Scott are powerless to appeal to any outside organization other than the Human Rights Commission.

At the government teat

Cooperative housing started in the 1970s as a response to rapid urban development. Activists bullied their way into the offices of developers and mayors to demand low-cost housing in the form of government start-up cash and money to renovate old buildings. By 1973, the federal and provincial governments had responded and coops began to spread all over Quebec.

Fifty thousand Quebecers now call 1,200 cooperatives home, representing approximately $1.5-billion worth of real estate, according to a report published by La Confédération québecoise des coopératives d'habitations (CQCH) in 1999. The province, under a five-year program called Accès Logis, has been giving out $43-million annual to co-ops.

The provincial and federal funding ends when the debts are paid. When that happens, cooperatives might suddenly find themselves bereft, abandoned or profitable. "Say, for example," says Pierre Chartier, "a member has lived in a certain cooperative for 20 years. When the debt is paid off, does he need to continue paying rent? Why should he pay the same rent as someone who joined in 2003? Or why should that new member profit from somebody else's 20 years of commitment?"

As the co-ops get paid off, the enormous bureaucratic infrastructures that help manage their finances, re-direct government funds, interpret and apply the law, might suddenly find themselves twiddling their thumbs.

Cash questions

Marcel Lebel, director of programs for the Société d'habitation et développement de Montréal (SHDM), suggested that many cooperatives may choose to re-mortgage. "These are fragile organizations," he says. "People frequently leave or need to be trained, and there are conflicts. It's hard enough for two people to live together, try 16."

The notion that co-ops have been co-opted by higher-income earners is largely anecdotal. But there's also little statistical evidence to show that the government-funded homes have helped the poor. "Our statistics show half of our members make under $15,000 a year, so our clientele has actually gotten poorer," says René Robert of the CQCH. His numbers are based on a study done by Statistics Canada in 1986.

Robert suggests that co-ops keep collecting monthly dues and invest the excess into creating more co-ops. "If the co-op has benefited from years and years of government aid, it's totally normal to help others profit. We are approaching big period of change. What will we do? That is what we're looking at now, studying possible scenarios. We want our cooperatives to develop, be dynamic."

more news...