Housing crisis represents loss of $4.2B for Quebec economy

The housing crisis cost the Quebec economy $4.2 billion in 2021.

The Quebec Inequality Observatory released this Wednesday the first part of a major study conducted with several public health departments entitled “The Collective Cost of the Housing Crisis in Quebec,” the results of which are thought-provoking.

This $4.2 billion figure represents the money that households spending 30 per cent or more of their gross income cannot inject into the economy by devoting it to other expenses. And the number of households in this situation in Quebec is staggering: a detailed analysis of cross-referenced data from the 2021 Canadian Housing Survey and the 2019 Survey of Household Spending concludes that more than 510,000 Quebec households spent 30 per cent or more of their total income on housing c