On the one hand, we want to make it available to women in difficulty. On the other, we want to transform it into a community center. The intentions are noble, but the future of the Foyer de Charité, a legacy of one of the oldest families in Sutton, in Estrie, is divided against a backdrop of the housing crisis.
Twenty-two acres of land, a maple grove, a hand-built fieldstone chapel, eight buildings including the former convent: four floors fully furnished and equipped with a chapel.
Entering the buildings of the Foyer de Charité is like stepping back in time. Built in 1911 on land donated graciously by Eugène Dyer, a well-known local notable – saved in extremis from a serious illness by a miracle of Brother André, according to local legend – the estate housed nuns until 1971.
-
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
The upper floors of the former convent are divided into individual rooms, all furnished, with some of the doors barely wide enough for a man’s shoulders.
-
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
The estate’s library still houses hundreds of books, especially religious writings. “And there’s quite a bit less left.” We took out a ten-wheeler full of them again the other day,” testifies the president of the NPO responsible for managing the site, Serge Poirier.
-
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
A few chalets spread across the estate also have several individual rooms like this one, heated by a wood fireplace on this cold December day.
-
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
On the second floor of the convent, a chapel with around a hundred seats also houses a life-size wooden sculpture of Christ.
1/4
The peaceful and silent atmosphere of the place, which was used for closed retreats until the pandemic, however contrasts with the dispute that has been going on in the small Estrie town since June.
Or since the Foyers de Charité, the religious movement established in France which recovered the estate in 1971, chose to dissolve the non-profit organization (NPO), Villa Châteauneuf inc., set up at the time to manage the domain on this side of the ocean.
In a letter from France, the pontifical delegate for the Foyers de Charité, Mr.gr Michel Dubost announced to the administrators of the Villa in Sutton that, faced with the realization that they no longer had the human resources to implement their mission, the “difficult decision” was taken to dissolve the NPO.
All the directors left in the following months. All ? No. Convinced that the Foyer de Charité de Sutton must continue its mission of helping women, as when it was a convent, its president, Serge Poirier, remained in the saddle.
With a hunched gait, he explains, during a walk in the maple grove, his preference to see the estate be transferred to Chaînon, an organization helping women in difficulty established in Montreal.
Convinced that this is the “strongest” entity to take over the reins of the Foyer de Charité, its vice-president, Victor Marchand, pleads alongside him that the place is perfectly suited to housing female victims. of domestic violence seeking to flee the city.
“The beds, the pillowcases are there, the rooms are ready to receive people. Tomorrow morning, the Chaînon, they would be there,” he insists.
A new community center
But the Town of Sutton does not see things that way. Informed of the steps taken by Villa Châteauneuf, the municipal council recently adopted a notice of reservation in order to prevent any modification to the estate. A gesture which had the effect of blocking the steps to donate it to the Chaînon, affirm the administrators of the NPO.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
The mayor of Sutton, Robert Benoît
The mayor of the small town, Robert Benoît, believes that it should instead be used to house a community center. The building that currently fulfills this mission in Sutton, the John-Sleeth community center, is in a deplorable state.
Covered in graffiti, the facade of the community center, located in the heart of the village, looks poor.
But after years of Sutton “strutting around” about not increasing its taxes, the municipality is grappling with serious budgetary issues. And the renovation of the John-Sleeth center would cost at least “10 million dollars”, according to Robert Benoît; hence the idea of acquiring the Foyer de Charité.
However, the mayor says he was “fallen astounded” when he learned of Villa Châteauneuf’s intention to give the Foyer de Charité to an “outside organization”, while Sutton “has 38 community groups that do not ‘have no facilities or equipment’.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
The John-Sleeth community center, in Sutton
The latter could move “tomorrow morning” to the Foyer de Charité, he says, admitting however that some work will be necessary in the main building, the upper floors of which are divided into individual rooms.
Robert Benoît also insists that he does not intend to subdivide the land of the Foyer de Charité to allow real estate development, which the administrators of Villa Châteauneuf suspect him of wanting to do. But it does not close the door to “possibly affordable real estate development” either. “It’s a potential, but that’s not the intention at all,” he adds immediately.
“Mount Sutton workers can no longer even find housing in town,” he then adds as an example of the consequences of the surge in real estate prices in the sector since the pandemic.
Strong allies
The elected official also added important allies to the file: the two great-granddaughters of Eugène Dyer, Ann and Diana, still established in Sutton 200 years after the arrival of their ancestor.
The latter hold up the notarial contract which formalized the donation of their ancestor’s land to the Sisters of the Presentation, then to the Foyer de Charité. The document, signed “in the year of our lord” 1911, stipulates that the Sutton establishment must be used “for the purposes of education in the said village of Sutton,” argues the elder, Diana Dyer.
“For it to become a place to accommodate, excuse me, but people with social problems from another city, when we have needs here and it can accommodate several social activities, it’s not fair,” she insists, convinced that Eugène Dyer would rather be in favor of the Sutton community center project.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
Diana Dyer and Ann Dyer, descendants of Eugène Dyer
The two sisters and the mayor Robert Benoît also judge that the Foyer de Charité de Sutton was the subject of a “hostile takeover” by the Villa Châteauneuf, whose president, Serge Poirier, would have remained in office in contravention rules and statutes of the NPO.
In the hope of avoiding a costly legal battle in court, the mayor hopes to reach an agreement with the administrators of Villa Châteauneuf; a conclusion which would save Eugène Dyer a few laps in his grave.