A unique pilot project at the Papineau Apartments

Our journalist wanders around Greater Montreal to talk about people, events and places that make the heart of their neighborhood beat.

When a tenant of the Papineau Apartments told community organizer Jean-François Lamontagne that she wanted to learn to knit, he had a revelation when he came across the website of Karine Fournier, who makes graffiti-knitting installations.^⁠1“We are going to knit social fabric,” he enthused.

Graffiti knitting is a way to embellish a space, to claim public space and to unite people behind a common project. This is exactly what Jean-François Lamontagne was trying to do with “his” tenants of the 139 apartments, most of which are supervised.

His message: Community organizations need help.

He doesn’t brag about it, but Jean-François Lamontagne is at the heart of homelessness prevention. Most of the tenants at the Papineau Apartments can’t be left to their own devices. Some have been, which led them to the street.

Hired in 2022 by the Société d’habitation populaire de l’est de Montréal (SHAPEM), which has a mandate to offer affordable rents, Jean-François Lamontagne works on a pilot project. “I act as a bridge between people in need and services,” summarizes the man who holds the title of community organizer and community agent.

Jean-François is certainly in the “middle” of the rather complex organization chart of the Papineau Apartments, which include 139 tenants in a building on Papineau Avenue, south of Bélanger Street. About a hundred studios are supervised by four organizations that have offices on site: Le Mûrier, Maison l’Échelon, Parcours and the Centre de réadaptation en handicap intellectuelle et en troubles périssants du développement (CRDITED). Some of the other 40 or so tenants are “electrons libres,” as they are called, while others follow the Toit d’abord program as part of a release. Finally, there are service agreements with three different integrated university health and social services centres (CIUSSS) – du Nord, de l’Est and du Centre-Sud.

“My goal is to unite everyone with a community life,” says Jean-François, who takes tenants to the park, to the local café, watches hockey games with them, and sometimes even takes them out to the countryside to pick apples.

He can help a tenant get diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder or get help with housekeeping. In-home cooking classes? Using the food bank? Going back to school? “It’s a la carte,” he says. “I’m like a resource directory. I’m a facilitator or a transmission belt.”

It is often when a tenant asks Jean-François to help him with a leaking faucet or when he is making flower boxes outside that needs arise during an innocuous conversation. One thing is certain, the community organizer integrates into society people in need who often cause disturbance.

“Create a living environment”

The pilot project that Jean-François is at the heart of was born after the pandemic. During the lockdown periods, organized crime had taken over the Papineau Apartments, as was the case before SHAPEM took them off the market and became the purchaser 30 years ago, recalls its general manager, Jean-Pierre Racette. Because some criminals have no qualms about exploiting vulnerable people by providing them with free drugs in exchange for their apartment for resale or prostitution.

After hiring security guards – a temporary solution – SHAPEM wanted to make the Papineau Apartments a healthy living environment again. “We wanted to create a dynamic so that people would take ownership of the building,” explains Jean-Pierre Racette.

Less than two years after Jean-François was hired, the impact is clear. The tenants of the Papineau Apartments have had the chance to garden in the alley and even go to the sugar shack. The next big group project ? Decorate the iconic arches of their building with knitwear.

“Initiatives like the SHAPEM pilot project are extremely important,” says Alexandra Arsenault of the RTCPP, as we take part in one of the knitting workshops one afternoon in June.

“Many people feel abandoned by institutions,” she says.

Behind the Papineau Apartments, north of Montcalm Park, SHAPEM and RTCPP oversee the citizen project La Ruelle pour toutes et tous. Neighborhood activities are organized there to make the place more user-friendly.

The speakers “fall in combat”

Alexandra Arsenault highlights how community organizations are at the forefront of social issues such as social integration, the housing crisis and homelessness, while also being seriously lacking in funding. “We are cheap labor, she denounces. And colleagues fall in combat.

We’re heading straight for a wall, she fears.

“We are working with reduced staff and people are burned out,” adds Jean-François. The wait times for resources, particularly in mental health, are too long, he notes on a daily basis.

Jean-François Lamontagne hopes that the Papineau Apartments pilot project will be replicated elsewhere. Karine Fournier, for her part, is excited about the “social mission” of her project with the tenants. “We’re going to add colour to the neighbourhood and liven it up,” she promises.

If knitting is a pretext for everyone to exchange, there is great symbolism in the slowness of the gesture and in the idea of ​​juxtaposing everyone’s work to adorn the arches. “It’s about taking the time to build something big little by little.”

1. Read the article “Feminist Knitting”