Quebec mansion images lack context on Kamala Harris teen home
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"KAMALA HARRIS - Grew up in Westmount Quebec, as she reports a Middle Class, Working Class Neighborhood," a September 27, 2024 Facebook post says.
The publication includes a collage of photos of Harris and opulent mansions, accompanied by stats about home prices in the Quebec area where the Democratic presidential candidate went to high school.
Numerous other posts shared the same text and images on Facebook , X and Instagram , implying that Harris misrepresented her economic background, including posts in Spanish . The vice president often evokes a middle-class family experience after both her parents came to the United States and started careers as immigrants (archived here ).
AFP previously reported Harris's mother Shyamala Gopalan was a medical researcher who took a job at Montreal's Jewish General Hospital and moved with her two daughters to Quebec in 1976 after her divorce of Harris's father Donald Harris.
Harris graduated from Westmount High School, part of the public English-language school system, in 1981 before returning to the United States to attend university.
Westmount, Quebec -- a municipality on the Island of Montreal -- is frequently listed as one of the richest areas in Canada. According to Canadian real estate company Royal LePage, the average home price (archived here ) is about Can$2 million ($1.4 million), with some properties selling for more than Can$11 million. This is well above the national average price of Can$669,630 reported by the Canadian Real Estate Association in September 2024 (archived here ).
However, Wanda Kagan, a former classmate and longtime friend of Harris, told the New York Times she briefly lived with the future vice president's family in an apartment in a middle-class neighborhood. She described a cohesive home life in a residence on Grosvenor Avenue, telling the Washington Post the Harris family lived on the second floor of a duplex.
Kagan previously spoke to AFP, but could not be reached for comment on this story. The Harris campaign also declined to comment, pointing to previous reporting.
Photos not of Harris family residence
Using reverse image search , AFP found all the houses included as images in the posts are located in Westmount (archived here , here and here ) . One of the homes is close to the corner of Grosvenor Avenue but none of the buildings were located on the street where the Harris family reportedly lived.
Christina Miller , a real estate agent based in Westmount (archived here ), acknowledged the affluence in the municipality in an October 17 interview with AFP, but said some people live in the area on average salaries.
"It's very easy for somebody to go and take a picture of a very big house in Westmount," she said. "But, I can also tell you as a realtor, I go into a lot of Westmount houses that have not had updates in many, many decades."
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Even at 1976 prices (10% of what they are today) there is no way in heaven or Hell that Kamilla's mother could afford to rent any of these pictured homes.
Perhaps they should show photos of Trumps homes when he was growing up, after all he is everyman according to the MAGAs.