The cases, described by The Press at the beginning of the week, pupils of the Public Curator who find themselves homeless, sometimes for several years, are “unacceptable”, jointly deplore the public curator of Quebec, Julie Lavergne-Baillargeon, and the Minister of the Family and responsible for the Public curator, Mathieu Lacombe.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
“You have exposed a flaw into which vulnerable people have fallen, a flaw that must be corrected, because it is unacceptable,” said the minister.
Mr. Lacombe learned from our article that pupils of the Curator found themselves on the street. “It’s not an issue that I knew about,” he said, admitting to having been “surprised” that a beneficiary under curatorship could end up homeless. “The natural reflex is to ask yourself: how can people who are under the guardianship of the state end up on the street? he says.
“On the other hand, when we have the details, we understand that we cannot tie these people to a chair and force them to receive services. There is a complexity in these cases. Does that mean it’s acceptable? No. This is an observation that we made very quickly, the curator and me. »
Does that mean the Curator is doing his job badly? Not necessarily. But that means we have to do better.
Mathieu Lacombe, Minister of Families and head of the Public Curator
Lawyer Julie Lavergne-Baillargeon, who has been acting head of the organization for less than two weeks, has worked at the Curateur public for almost 15 years. She said she was “particularly sensitive” to the four beneficiary stories we described. About fifty vulnerable people, who are under the protection of the Curateur public, live on the streets.
The new public curator promises to treat this issue of homeless beneficiaries “as a priority”, she says. “We have to see how we can do better. »
The organization has already started to tackle this problem, underlines Mand Lavergne-Baillargeon, in particular by creating four liaison officer positions, whose specific mandate is to create links between the Curateur public and organizations dealing with homelessness. “We have to create an alliance with the people on the ground. »
We are going to hold more formal discussions with the organizations in contact with homeless people in order to identify avenues for concrete action to play our role even better with the people we represent.
Mand Julie Lavergne-Baillargeon, Interim Public Curator of Quebec
The new curator therefore intends to challenge the partners of the health network and community organizations in order to prevent the homelessness of her clientele at all costs.
In terms of resources, Mand Lavergne-Baillargeon is delighted with the arrival of 27 new employees in three years. Eleven more will be added this year, to compensate for the additional work that will result from the new legislation that will govern the Curateur public.
An “alarming” reality
For their part, the opposition parties have denounced a situation which they consider extremely worrying. Liberal MP Jennifer Maccarone, who sat on the recent parliamentary committee on the reform of the Public Curator, said she was “shocked” by the cases revealed in our investigation.
“It could be your children. It could be mine, ”says this mother of two autistic children. “It is absolutely necessary to tackle the overload of work of delegated curators,” adds Ms.me Maccarone. They have so many records that it’s impossible for them to be as effective as they would like on the pitch. »
In the eyes of the Liberal MNA, it is “abnormal” that the Curator does not make more efforts to communicate with homelessness resources, while people under its protection find themselves on the street.
The Curator must establish communication with people in the field to explain his mission and his services, especially with the upcoming reform.
Jennifer Maccarone, Liberal MP
“While the minister [Mathieu] Lacombe had promised, during the reform of the Public Curator Act, that all the required resources were and would be there, we have to admit that the reality on the ground is quite different and that it is a failure. Result: people in vulnerable situations who need constant support are far from all receiving it, hence the alarming number of people under curatorship who are notably in a situation of homelessness,” denounced PQ member Véronique Hivon.
With the new law, continues Mr.me Hivon, “it is the announced catastrophe. The minister has an obligation of result, she said. An advanced society like Quebec cannot afford to save money on the backs of such vulnerable people.”
According to Christine Labrie, of Québec solidaire, these homeless people who are nevertheless under the protection of the State show that “the social safety net has huge holes”.
“Trying to get intellectual disability or mental health services can seem like an obstacle course, but it’s also very often the quest for a service that simply doesn’t exist,” laments Ms.me Labrie. When public servants themselves face this lack of services as part of their mandate with vulnerable people, it seems to me that red lights should go on in the government’s dashboard. »