Lone tenant in a $400-a-month apartment could hold up major Montreal condo project

Carla White is the only remaining tenant in her building, which is slated to be demolished to make room for a 176-unit condo project. But in order to move forward, the developer must reach an agreement with White -- and she says she won't leave until she's provided with a home that offers the long-term stability she needs to ensure she won't end up back on the streets.

As Carla White looks out the window of her yellow-and-pink, plant-filled apartment in the heart of downtown Montreal, she wonders where she's going to live next.

"I look out there and say, where am I going now?" she says, gesturing at the highrises that tower above the building where she lives.

The apartment is small and cluttered, it doesn't have a working stove and her bed and small desk take up most of the floor space. But it's home and, at $400 a month, the price is right.

White, who declined to give her age, says she was homeless after multiple previous evictions before she found a home she could afford a decade ago. The small bachelor apartment has given her a measure of stability. But like so many low-income tenants in Montreal, she finds that stability threatened by gentrification and development.

She is the only remaining tenant in her building, which is slated to be demolished to make room for a 176-unit condo project. But in order to move forward, the developer must reach an agreement with White -- and she says she won't leave until she's provided with a home that offers the long-term stability she needs to ensure she won't end up back on the streets.

In a meeting at the beginning of May, the city's demolition committee voted to approve the demolition of the building at the corner of St-Hubert and Ste-Catherine streets, which includes the former site of a well-known Italian restaurant, Da Giovanni. However, the approval has conditions attached, including that the developer demonstrate that the file has been settled with the holdout tenant, according to the committee meeting minutes.

The developer, Mondev, did not respond to a request for comment. But at the May 1 committee meeting, senior partner David Owen said the company has been trying to negotiate with White for "three or four years" without success.