Supporting Montréal in addressing its housing crisis with Centraide

With a short supply of housing, the greater Montréal area, like other Canadian communities, is faced with a housing crisis, but because of the issue’s complexity, the true scope of the problem has been unknown. Policy makers and other stakeholders in housing have historically lacked the data and insight to guide decision-making.

To improve the visibility into housing challenges that disproportionately affect the most vulnerable populations, Centraide of Greater Montréal reached out to McKinsey to develop measurements and tracking indicators. McKinsey’s Montréal office—a partner to Centraide for more than ten years—volunteered to outline a profound analysis and develop a measurement tool that reflects the evolving nature of the housing crisis. Our research identified that close to 360,000—or nearly one in five—greater Montréal households do not make enough money to pay for their housing and for essential needs such as food, clothing, or transportation. The total annual deficit for these households is estimated to be $3.6 billion. Through our work with Centraide, McKinsey took the following actions:

• Conducted extensive interviews with local community leaders and global experts about housing accessibility and affordability to understand key drivers and metrics for housing shortages
• Developed a detailed but easy-to-understand analysis of housing affordability for each neighborhood, which will be regularly updated to monitor progress
• Shared our learnings with more than 400 local leaders to ensure transparency on the problem and empower stakeholders to find lasting solutions to the housing crisis for its most vulnerable people