Québec Solidaire Wants To Make 10,000 Homes In The Province 25% Cheaper — With A Catch

Québec solidaire (QS) wants to make 10,000 homes for sale in Quebec 25% cheaper to address the housing crisis and make homeownership more accessible, especially for young adults. It's the left-wing party's latest eye-catching proposal ahead of the Quebec election.

"To solve the housing crisis, we need more social housing, but also affordable houses and condos for the middle class," party spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois said Monday. "This is the commitment I am making today: 10,000 affordable properties, throughout Quebec. 10,000 homes 25% cheaper, without risk and without overbidding."

The party says it would make this happen using a model that developed in the northeastern U.S. in the '70s: the government, via the Société d'habitation du Québec and local organizations, would buy properties and then resell the buildings on them while keeping ownership of the land, thus enabling the 25% price reduction.

Nadeau-Dubois promised homeowners who benefit from the program would see a "reasonable profit, fixed in advance" when they're ready to sell their home.

Québec solidaire says it would invest $1 billion into the measure if it forms a government.

In a press release, QS MNAs and candidates lamented the inability of youth to purchase a home, as well as what the party perceives as the governing CAQ's lack of action to address the housing crisis.

"I have spent the last few years hounding Mr. Legault, hounding his [housing] minister, Andrée Laforest, so that they recognize the problem, but also so that we can come up with solutions," Laurier-Dorion QS MNA Andrés Fontecilla said in the release. "I submitted many ideas to them, I proposed ways to solve the crisis. They did nothing."