The building is splattered with different shades of paint. Its doors and windows are covered with posters. The message is as clear as the graffiti sprayed across its walls: the crowd who gathered around the building on Wednesday doesn’t want Airbnbs in their neighbourhood and to them, it is a brick-and-glass symbol of housing crisis.
Carrying banners and flags, demonstrators demanded municipal and provincial leaders enforce a bylaw against short-term rentals — a bylaw the borough of Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve says it doesn’t have the power to fully implement.
Last spring, the borough banned new commercial tourist accommodations to, in its words, help protect tenants and preserve the city’s
