13 Montreal organizations are facing eviction, but Ottawa just offered to save them
Thirteen community organizations are currently facing eviction in Montreal's Ahunstic-Cartierville borough, but on Saturday, the cards were reshuffled and those groups were offered a glimmer of hope.
Mélanie Joly, Canada's minister of foreign affairs, announced a $15 million investment to relocate the groups currently housed at the Ahunstic Community Centre.
The centre is located in Joly's riding. She's been an MP there since 2015 and plans to run again as a Liberal candidate in the federal election that was called on Sunday.
"There's been a call for help from the community sector here for a long time," she told reporters on Saturday.
The organizations will move to the Écoquartier Louvain, a new residential neighbourhood to be built in the same borough that's expected to include 1,000 affordable housing units.
For months, the 13 groups had been threatened with eviction by the Centre de services scolaires de Montréal (CSSDM), the province's largest school service centre, which plans to transform the space they've occupied for about 20 years into a French-language learning centre.
The organizations were asked to pack up on Dec. 27, but refused to budge.
Although the eviction case is before the courts, Joly said she would work with the Quebec government and the CSSDM to ensure that the organizations can continue to work at the centre until the new building is built.
Among the organizations being evicted is the Service de nutrition et d'action communautaire (SNAC), which offered food assistance to 1,970 households over the last year, feeding nearly 4,000 people from their location inside the centre.
The centre's offering is wide-ranging: it has a daycare, a youth advocacy group, services for seniors, assistance for people dealing with homelessness and addiction as well as a meals-on-wheels program.
There's even a francization centre already on site that's offering French-language classes.
In December, with the CSSDM's deadline hanging over their heads, the organizations reported that they had nowhere to relocate after struggling for months to find an affordable place.
Joly explained that it's "always a challenge" for the federal government to financially support community centres, as decisions are usually made at the municipal and provincials levels.
"But this project is also part of the creation of a new neighbourhood with several affordable housing units," said Joly.
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