Montreal Budget Hotels-Centre West Area

Recently my friend Ewa Jarmicka of Toronto said she was visiting Montreal and wanted to locate a nice, inexpensive place to stay in the west central area of the city, home to some expensive hostelries like the Fairmount Queen Elizabeth, Chapeau Champlain, and the Sofitel. At first I was stumped, but then I remembered the hotel run by the YWCA at the corner of Rene Levesque Boulevard and Crescent Street. Back in the day, I stayed there when I first started working as a business reporter at The Gazette.
Ewa was able to get a single room with bath there through http://booking.com/ for $67 a night, and reported that the place was basic but very clean. She said she would be writing a detailed review on the booking.com Website.
Not far away, the YMCA near the corner of Stanley and de Maisonneuve and right opposite a Metro entrance also has rooms for rent, but they lack private bath, so rates should be even lower.
Closer to the YWCA is a new budget hotel in a renovated Victorian greystone called Hotel A2K, where rooms start as low as $67. This hotel is run by the same people who manage the popular Indian restaurant next door, the Buffet Maharajah, and based on the pictures looks quite nice.
Montreal has become a fairly expensive city in the last few years, so it is good to know that there are still options for budget travel even when the university residences are filled with students, not tourists.