'We're not leaving': Montreal tenants fight to block transformation of seniors' residence into apartments

Constance Vaudrin, 83, said she was shocked when she found out in February that the new owner of the building she lives in intended to remove its status as a private seniors' residence.

She and her neighbours had previously been told the new owner would be maintaining all the services to elderly tenants in Résidence Mont-Carmel, a 16-storey housing complex with 216 apartments on René-Lévesque Boulevard in downtown Montreal.

Vaudrin is determined to stay, now among a group of more than 50 tenants in the building who have filed for an injunction at Quebec Superior Court to block the landlord's plan to do away with services they rely on.

"What we have now is extremely important for the kind of people who are living here," said Vaudrin, who has lived there for five years, emphasizing it's not just a home but an entire community they've built there. 

"We've built a social network here," she said. "We're not leaving."

The seniors maintain the new owner has breached the sale agreement reached with the previous owner. A notarized deed of sale obtained by Radio-Canada included a clause stating the housing complex would maintain its status as a home for low-income tenants that provides services to elderly people. 

The home currently has an onsite nurse, a receptionist who checks in on residents, alert buttons in units and common areas that include a library and pool.

The building was sold for $40 million in December 2021 to a company owned and managed by Henry Zavriyev, a young real estate investor who has a history of clearing residential buildings out in the name of renovations.

The company backtracked on the decision to maintain Mont-Carmel's status as a Résidence privée pour aînés (RPA) in February, claiming it had discovered the building was in poor condition with a vacancy rate of 12 per cent — something that had not been mentioned during negotiations. 

This created an unviable financial situation for them, Zavriyev said then. He declined to comment on the tenants' request for an injunction. 

The company has since told tenants that services in the building will be gone as of July 31, and that they are free to stay as long as they agree to a three per cent rent hike.

But there are many in the building with health conditions that require the assistance of the onsite nurse there, meaning they will have to leave to ensure their safety, Vaudrin says. 

Widespread problem

Manuel Johnson is one the lawyers representing the tenants and said there need to be measures in place to prevent RPAs from being stripped of their status. 

"This is a widespread problem. The legal protections are not there," Johnson said. 

More than 60 RPAs in Quebec have closed this year, according to the Regroupement québécois des résidences pour aînés (RQRA), which represents a network of hundreds of private seniors' residences in the province. 

More than 4,000 Quebecers have signed a petition addressed to the National Assembly demanding an amendment to the Civil Code that would prevent new owners from turning RPAs into apartments.  

The tenants will head to Quebec Superior Court on May 6, where they will ask for a temporary injunction to prevent the removal of their building's RPA status until a civil trial can be held. 

"We need to have a safeguard measure in the meantime," Johnson said. 

Some 200 residents live at Mont-Carmel — two-thirds of whom are over 75. 

"They're hoping to finish the rest of their days there, they created for themselves a really incredible milieu de vie," Johnson said.

"A lot of them are people that have fought their whole life for social justice and so they are used to doing community organizing. This is their home, but it's also their community."