Our angels short of miracles

There are thousands of guardian angels across Quebec and they are far from being confined to the health network. Without all these good souls to fill the holes in our social safety net, it is no exaggeration to say that the province would experience a serious social crisis.

While The Press shines its spotlight on “Québec on the move”, it’s a great opportunity to tip our hats to the artisans in the community, mostly women, who work small miracles in the field.

Among the many faces of mutual aid in Quebec, there is that of Agnès Mbome, who voluntarily founded Racine croisee, a food bank inspired by her own journey as an immigrant.

Originally from Cameroon, she found that the foods offered to immigrants did not always match their culture. Instead of standing idly by, like a true entrepreneur for the common good, she said to herself: “If there is water, you have to find planks and build a bridge to cross the river. »

With the organization Racine croisee, she began to offer baskets containing foods such as rice, okra or cassava, popular in Africa, South America or Asia.

In her office on Parc Avenue in Montreal, she hands out up to 400 baskets a week. And not just immigrants. There are pure Quebec families, students at the Bar… Because with inflation, poverty hits wider and wider.

Across Quebec, 671,000 people receive food aid each month (one-third of whom are children), a number that has increased by 33% since 2019.

However, inflation also increases the cost of food, transportation and rent, putting pressure on the already stretched budget of community organizations. And we haven’t talked about the recruiting challenge yet…

In a context of labor shortages, community organizations are struggling to attract and retain staff with an average hourly rate of $24.44 per hour, a quarter below the hourly rate of Quebecers working full time ($33.22). It is all the more difficult since pension plans and insurance programs are rare and job security is very hypothetical in an environment that must always fight to obtain financing.

Ultimately, many community organizations fail to meet the demand.

It is extremely worrying to learn that the Regrouping of houses for women victims of domestic violence refused 3,736 requests, in 2021-2022, for lack of places, as our colleague Hugo Pilon-Larose reported this week.

Other organizations are forced to reduce their services, such as Racine Croisée, which only opens its doors one day a week, instead of two, for lack of food.

By dint of stretching the sauce, our angels are running out of miracles.

However, the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) has increased funding substantially, which is to be commended. Taking into account the investments of the last budgets as well as indexation, the total funding for the Support Program for Community Organizations in 2023-2024 amounts to more than $1 billion, or 54% more than in 2019-2020.

This is a big step in the right direction, although there is still a long way to go. Fortunately, the Government Action Plan for Community Action 2022-2027, tabled last year by Minister Jean Boulet, points in the right direction.

Thus, the government has undertaken to provide more funding for the general mission of community organizations, rather than for specific projects, which will facilitate their longer-term planning.

The CAQ is also committed to creating a single point of entry to simplify the lives of organizations that already have their hands full in the field. They have no time to waste negotiating with the dozen departments involved in the fight against poverty, each with their programs, their forms and their little boxes to fill in.

Let’s do everything we can to take good care of our breathless guardian angels, like Agnès Mbome when she watches the line of several hundred people stretching to the Mont-Royal intersection to enter Racine Croisée.

Let’s make sure his pride in helping others isn’t overshadowed by the stress of not meeting the demands.