J ean-François Raymond wasn’t expecting an eviction notice in the last few days of 2022. He’d lived in his spacious apartment in Montreal’s east-end neighbourhood of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve for twenty-two years. It was home in the truest sense of the word. “It was the place that I raised my kid,” he said. “There are plenty of memories.”
But somewhere along the line, as Raymond and his partner raised their child and lived their lives, the local borough established rules in an effort to limit short-term tourist accommodations like Airbnb. That was back in 2016, when the Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough council was under growing pressure to clamp down on the boom in short-term rental suites. So the elected officials drew up a set of what they hoped would be relatively simple rules that prohibit—at least on paper—apartments being operated as short-term vacation rentals in most areas. However, the council permitted vacation rentals “in areas where there are businesses and buildings with three or more dwellings.”
