A new study shows how a 6% rent increase could push tens of thousands into financial insecurity
A new study from Centraide of Greater Montreal warns that a 6% increase in rents across the region could thrust more than 30,000 people into financial insecurity, a figure that is nearly 1.5 times the capacity of the Bell Centre.
The forecasting analysis, conducted by artificial intelligence firm RUNWITHIT Synthetics, found that more than 16,000 of those individuals would fall into extreme hardship, where a single unexpected expense could trigger cascading consequences including food insecurity, mounting debt, and homelessness.
The 6% scenario is grounded in recent market trends and is designed to test the outer edge of what remains plausible.
For comparison, the Tribunal administratif du logement (TAL) recommended rent increases of approximately 4% in 2024, 5.9% in 2025, and 3.1% in 2026. Taken together, those three years represent a cumulative TAL guideline increase of roughly 13.6%, a figure that compounds painfully for households already stretched to the limit.
The findings land against a backdrop of growing regulatory concern, as Quebec's rent policy overhaul tied annual increases more closely to the consumer price index beginning in 2026, deepening tensions between landlords and tenant advocates across the province.
The study draws on RUNWITHIT Synthetics' INFLECTOR AI platform, which generated a detailed synthetic population for an area spanning 66 municipalities in Greater Montreal.
The model incorporates income, household expenses, and real residential data without using surveillance data or compromising personal privacy, then simulated the effect of a 6% rent increase at the household level.
"Three years after Together for Housing was introduced, the situation is more urgent than ever," said Tasha Lackman, president and chief executive officer of Centraide of Greater Montreal.
"The demand for organizations' services has surged and the impacts of housing costs are increasingly visible, with families being displaced, individuals pushed to the brink financially and workers unable to find a decent place to live."
The study forms part of Centraide's Together for Housing initiative, launched in 2023, and responds to one of the solutions the initiative identified: improving and sharing data to support more effective access to adequate housing for low-income households.
Ten boroughs face the steepest cliff edge
According to RUNWITHIT Synthetics' projections, a 6% rent increase would drive 10,000 residents across 10 Montréal boroughs into extreme precarity. Those boroughs are Ahuntsic-Cartierville, Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, LaSalle, Le Plateau-Mont-Royal, Le Sud-Ouest, Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, Montréal-Nord, Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie, Ville-Marie and Villeray–Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension.
The most acute exposure sits in Ville-Marie and Le Plateau-Mont-Royal, where extreme-precarity rates reach 43% and 34% respectively.
The study employs a four-level precarity index — stability, low precarity, high precarity, and extreme precarity — that accounts for both income and essential household expenses such as housing, food, and electricity.
Conventional vulnerability indicators that focus on income alone risk significantly underestimating the number of renters who have no financial cushion.
Dean Bittner, chief technology officer and co-founder of RUNWITHIT Synthetics, said the platform allows policymakers to measure the effectiveness of interventions at the household level.
"What emerges are the households, the people, their locations and circumstances, so that we can measure the return on investment and return on impact of the steps we can take — for whom and where — to stem a slide toward precarity and poverty, and prevent those social and financial repercussions," Bittner said.
What this means for Canada's mortgage market
For mortgage brokers advising clients across Quebec, the study carries implications that extend well beyond social housing policy.
A growing cohort of financially precarious renters cannot build the savings needed for a down payment, narrowing the pipeline of prospective first-time buyers at a time when affordability pressures are already spreading to Montreal and away from Toronto and Vancouver.
Montreal's condo affordability index, as tracked by RBC Economics, exceeded Toronto's for the first time in 16 years in the first quarter of 2026, a reversal that reflects persistent price strength in the city even as rents in other parts of Canada have softened.
"This data confirms that investing in social and community housing is vital to ensure people have access to options that are affordable and suited to their needs," Lackman said.
"It also prompts us to explore new avenues with partners across our ecosystem to improve housing conditions and preserve the existing rental housing stock."
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