The Kirouac bar and its karaoke evenings, entered into the folklore of the pandemic for having incubated a major outbreak of COVID-19 in the fall of 2020, will give way to a housing cooperative by 2025.
The latter, which will be “carried by the citizens” according to the town hall of Quebec, will have a storefront in Saint-Sauveur, a district historically inhabited by the poor and located in lower town of Quebec. Its population extends to the foot of the cliff which has long separated the posh suburbs of the capital and the working masses crowded below.
For several years, however, the neighborhood has been changing and gentrifying. A bar like Le Kirouac, populated by regulars almost always stuck at the bottom of the social ladder, had to share the neighborhood with chic latte cafes and salt-priced restaurants.
The Kirouac, which smelled of beer and above all, popular opprobrium after the second wave came to splash it, closed its doors in the spring of last year. Since then, a society on the fringes of the current gentrification finds itself orphaned by a refuge where some came to drown who-knows-what at the bottom of the bottle, others, to sing karaoke to be heard in a world who rarely listens to anyone smaller than him.
The bar, now a simple abandoned building, is located in the heart of a quadrilateral where opposite realities rub shoulders.
Misery
On the other side of the street, a rooming house shelters a menagerie of maganés. The rents, in this building in need of love, oscillate between 320 and 360 $. At this price, the toilets are common, the corridors worn and the clientele difficult.
The concierge, Richard Martin, has only one wish: that the building be sold and demolished.
“I’m tired of bickering,” says the 59-year-old. The mental health or substance abuse issues of some tenants are beyond his ability to keep the place in order. The police have to intervene frequently: in the last three weeks, Richard has seen her “disembarked a dozen times”.
“That the Le Kirouac bar is closed, it doesn’t bother me much,” he explains. Often, I went looking for tenants who spent their rent on slot machines. »
For all his leisure, Richard explains that he pedals and walks in the streets of Saint-Sauveur, where he can covet at leisure the new opulence that is emerging in the neighborhood. He is not rolling in gold either: unable to afford the restaurants that are springing up in his neighborhood, he is thinking of returning to live in his native Baie-Comeau. “I miss the river,” he sighs, his eyes crossed by the memory of the St. Lawrence from his childhood.
The wealth
Right next to Richard’s shine new townhouses. Roof terrace and large window that lets in light: Jade Auclair-Roy could not miss this opportunity. In August 2020, she and her spouse became owners. Price: $425,000.
“We, it’s the neighborhood that we really find fun,” explains the young thirty-year-old. She knew that “it wasn’t always luxurious” choosing to live here: however, Jade is certain that she has made a good investment.
The booming commercial offer in the neighborhood is already enhancing the value of Saint-Sauveur. Less than two years after her purchase, the young woman, herself a real estate appraiser, estimates that her property is now worth half a million dollars on the market.
“Our goal, when we bought, was to have a foothold in town,” she explains. In 5 or 10 years, we want to do long-term rental. »
Jade does not mourn the announced disappearance of Kirouac. Rather, it’s the rooming house that Richard tries somehow to keep afloat that bothers him. “The police come really often,” she laments. That’s much more than the Kirouac bar which is a stain in the neighborhood. »
The Gauls
One opposite the other, two worlds clash with unequal weapons. The less fortunate, sooner or later, will have to leave, hunt by the wealth that flourishes around their poverty.
“People want to stay in the neighborhood they love, but it’s increasingly impossible,” says Éloïse Gaudreau, coordinator of the Saint-Sauveur Citizens’ Committee. The co-op, she adds, will restore its rights to diversity in a neighborhood given over to private pasture. “It’s resistance. Like the Gauls. »