A Montreal co-op helped her build a life. Quebec’s housing overhaul threatens to dismantle it

Heidi Miller has spent 21 years helping shape the Montreal housing co-operative she calls home: serving as president of the board, organizing clothing exchanges, planting vines around the building and persuading a former employer to donate furniture for a shared community space.

At her co-op, Coopérative d’habitation Val Perché, just north of Old Montreal, there are about 50 units and more than 100 people who live there in total, Miller said in an interview.

It was there that she raised two daughters, became widowed, beat cancer and also fostered friends of her children who needed a place to stay.

But now she fears Quebec’s proposed Bill 20 — which would change parts of the province’s affordable housing system and could financially penalize some co-op residents whose incomes rise above set thresholds — could force her out of the co-op entirely.

“Being in a co-op allowed me to survive financially and actually raise my daughters in a place that was safe and affordable,” said Miller, a freelance writer and documentary researcher.

After years of financial precarity, she said, she has only recently begun earning what she describes as a decent income.

“I’ve never been able to put money aside,” she said. “And now it’s kind of like my retirement plan involves living in my co-op.”

She was among hundreds of co-op residents and supporters Monday gathered outside Quebec’s housing ministry offices in downtown Montreal to demand the provincial government withdraw the legislation.

“The CAQ government is a government of landlords, which is not acting to improve the lot of tenants. It is even contributing to making it worse,” said Eva Garrido of the Castelnau-Casgrain co-operative, one of the organizers of the rally.

Introduced in February by then Quebec Housing Minister Caroline Proulx, Bill 20 would overhaul the income thresholds generally used to determine who can enter affordable housing and co-operatives.

Now, residents are not forced out if their financial situation later improves. But Bill 20 would change that, introducing financial penalties for some residents whose incomes rise above thresholds that have not yet been determined.

Miller roughly estimates about a third of residents in her co-op could eventually be forced out by the proposed legislation.

“The intent of a co-operative is for you to improve your life,” Miller explained. “You don’t get penalized if your life gets better.”

It would also create a centralized system for selecting residents for certain affordable housing.

Ultimately, the changes are intended to improve access to affordable housing as Quebec faces pressure on rents and housing supply, the government has said.

Last year a report by Quebec’s auditor general that at least 2,700 households across the province were benefiting from subsidized housing despite incomes exceeding the Société d’habitation du Québec’s eligibility thresholds.

Still, co-op residents and housing advocates argue the legislation fundamentally misunderstands how housing co-operatives function.

Unlike standard apartment buildings, housing co-operatives are collectively managed by residents themselves. Members help oversee maintenance, finances and daily operations, often volunteering hundreds of hours each year. Boards typically select new residents based on income but also on the skills and time they can contribute to the community.

“You can only come into a co-op if you’re accepted as a member, a member who’s going to contribute to the community,” Miller said. “We might need somebody who has gardening skills all of a sudden, so we’ll probably be more likely to look for somebody who has gardening skills.”

In March, Patrick Préville, executive director of the Fédération de l’habitation coopérative du Québec (FHCQ), which represents 480 of the 1,300 housing co-operatives in the province, warned that the legislation “threatens the long-term survival of the model of co-operative housing in Quebec.”

The Front d’action populaire en réaménagement urbain (FRAPRU) has also said the legislation fails to address the broader shortage of affordable housing while risking the destabilization of existing co-operatives.

A petition at the National Assembly calling on the government to withdraw parts of Bill 20 gathered more than 14,000 signatures before closing this month.

Miller said the diversity of backgrounds within her co-op is what makes the model effective.

“Different people from different backgrounds can actually work together and kind of take control of where they live,” she said.

As for her attention in the building, she has recently shifted to a radioactive gas called radon, often found in basements.

She began researching the lung-cancer-linked hazard after having heard about it from a colleague. She’s now organizing testing across the apartments.

“The government can’t tell us what we need,” she said. “We know what we need.”

With files from The Gazette’s Linda Gyulai

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Harry North

I’ve been writing for the Montreal Gazette since 2023. My favourite stories are ones that make you think and I'm always looking for new ways to tell them. At McGill, I studied economics and computer science. Now I live in the city’s Plateau, where I wear Doc Martens to try and blend in among the hipsters. Got a story? Email me: [email protected]

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