Their names are Annie, Nathalie, Jessica, Noémie and Lou-Ann. On the score of their lives, there were jarring notes: bouts of domestic violence, homelessness, battling addictions, custody battles too. After having often had the impression of leading a parallel fight “against the system”, they finally found security, stability and serenity to rebuild themselves at the Maison de Sophia, a community organization in the Laurentians offering temporary accommodation to women in difficulty.
Reports by our journalist Jessica Nadeau on this shelter and the financial peril in which it finds itself are stirring. The organization founded in 2008 offers a home to women in difficulty, but they find there much more than a roof: thanks to the support and supervision that the nine women currently housed there receive, they find a part of dignity, enough confidence and assurance to start afresh, the stability necessary to receive their children of whom they no longer have custody, and even the leisure to restore their “health”. But there is a but: the Integrated Health and Social Services Center (CISSS) of the Laurentians has not renewed their funding of $230,000, and the House will have to close. There is almost nothing left in the crate to hold on. Hurry up.
On March 25, the CISSS des Laurentides clipped the wings of the Maison de Sophia. It received too many project funding requests for too little funding — a budget of $3,329,105 and almost $13,000,000 in requests. “Unfortunately, despite its relevance, your project was not selected. The women are in shock, and the administrators of the establishment too. To add to their disappointment, Prime Minister François Legault mentioned a lack of accountability to explain the non-renewal of funding. Rehousing options for women in the region are limited: five houses for women victims of violence do not really meet their needs, and the prospect of staying in a mixed residence in the vicinity does not appeal to them.
The outcome of this story will seal the fate of Annie, Nathalie, Jessica, Noémie and Lou-Ann. In a Quebec budget like the one presented on March 22 by the Minister of Finance, Eric Girard, their cry from the heart does not carry much weight. There are approximately 8,000 community organizations in all regions of Quebec, and it is no exaggeration to suggest that their hard work is inversely proportional to the size of their funding. From time immemorial, community organizations, a veritable social safety net into which many citizens turned away at the doors of public services, have cried out that they are underfunded. The refrain, alas, no longer scratches the ears of all elected officials.
Ironically, the last Girard budget allocated an increase in the budgets earmarked for community action — $1.1 billion over five years — but the needs were so colossal that this increase, received with some disappointment, will not allow to put away the anxiety associated with a state of constant financial fragility, and this, while the needs are constantly increasing. During the pandemic, community frontline resources have been overwhelmed by people in dire need, but funding fails to recognize this runaway rise.
The case of the Maison de Sophia alone embodies many of the challenges faced by community action experts in Quebec. First, this tiresome impression that the politician is disconnected from the field and that through his evasive answers, he does not recognize the faces behind the figures. Then, that we impose an extreme administrative heaviness on them which slows down their concrete and urgent actions; this is one of the most recurrent blames among community groups (the Maison de Sophia was criticized for its imperfect accountability, which the organization agreed to and what it has been working on for a year) .
Finally, that to the chronic underfunding that already afflicts them, we now add a form of competition where we play the funding of some against that of others, creating an airlock of inequity. Sophia’s House is under threat of closure, but next door shelters for women victims of domestic violence are experiencing a financial upturn, and a $6.5 million home project to address homelessness will see the day in Saint-Jérôme. To dress Roger, Aline and Magdala, too bad we have to undress Annie, Jessica and Noémie.