The Quebec Association of Retirees from the Public and Parapublic Sectors (AQRP) deplores the eviction of more than 2,500 elderly people from their private seniors’ residence (RPA) between 2022 and 2023.
According to a survey conducted by the AQRP between October 2022 and September 2023 and made public on Tuesday, 88 RPAs closed their doors.
Half of the evicted tenants come from the Montreal and Quebec regions – which represents a little more than 1,200 seniors.
Note that the Integrated University Health and Social Services Centers (CIUSSS) of the Center-West and Center-South of the island of Montreal have not disclosed their data.
The provincial president of the AQRP, Paul-René Roy, believes that it is unacceptable that vulnerable elderly people are in this situation and he calls on the Minister of Housing, France-Élaine Duranceau, to act on this. forehead.
The association is calling for the addition of a clause in Bill 31 currently under study, to prohibit evictions from private seniors’ residences.
According to her, the financial compensation in the event of closure, provided for in the bill, is not going in the right direction.
“This legislative proposal risks having harmful consequences on the well-being of residents in RPA, forcing them to move and exposing them to psychological after-effects such as loss of taste for living and the feeling of uprooting,” underlined Paul -René Roy in a press release.
Members of the National Assembly are still studying Minister Duranceau’s controversial Bill 31, which has been significantly modified since its tabling.
In an open letter published at the end of December, the president of the FADOQ Network, Gisèle Tassé-Goodman, also called on the government to intervene regarding the RPA closures.
“We also proposed measures to stem the wave of closures of small RPAs,” she maintained.
“Let us remember that small RPAs are generally located in the regions and that their closure can lead to the uprooting of tenants who must then move to large centers. »