The premises of Maison Marguerite, a Rosemont organization that offers short- and long-term housing to vulnerable women, were destroyed by fire last spring. A few months later, workers and beneficiaries are still healing the wounds caused by this traumatic incident. The Duty was able to visit the temporary premises in which Maison Marguerite is trying to rebuild itself.
On April 29, around 8:30 a.m., Pascale Gilbert was on her way to Maison Marguerite, where she has worked for almost 19 years.
As she exits the subway, she receives a call from a panicked colleague. A fire has broken out in the building: the residents must be evacuated.
“I didn’t realize the magnitude of what was happening,” says the organization’s volunteer coordinator, still shaken months later.
Arriving at the scene (which cannot be located for reasons of confidentiality), Pascale Gilbert discovers the extent of the tragedy. Dragged out of bed by the shrill sound of the fire alarm, several women are gathered, in a state of shock, in the park adjacent to the premises of Maison Marguerite. Some are still in their pajamas, their pets in their arms, while the firefighters arrive on the scene.
Help was quickly organized. The 37 women sheltered by Maison Marguerite and the workers who supported them found refuge in a nearby church. There, they were able to catch their breath, drink coffee and warm up under the blankets and clothes offered by the local clothing counter.
Outside, what started as a minor blaze is growing. The electrical fire, which started in the short-term accommodation wing, is spreading to other areas of the building, including the studios for low-income single women.
It will ultimately take 150 firefighters to put it out. Maison Marguerite is heavily damaged and will not be habitable for years. No one is injured, but a harsh reality is clear. These women, with whom life has never been kind, have lost everything: their meager possessions, but above all the place that offered them a roof and security.
From one crisis to another
Mireille Roy, general manager of Maison Marguerite, doesn’t have time to absorb the news as she is already busy finding a place to shelter “her” women. There is no question of sending these destitute women back onto the streets, who often have only just left.
In the first few days after the fire, they were all relocated to a hotel, courtesy of the Red Cross, which had taken charge of the victims. When the Red Cross’s assistance ended, the group of women was split between two different hotels. The workers also slept at the hotel to continue their mission and offer their support, 24 hours a day if necessary.
“We couldn’t leave the women traumatized like that,” says Mireille Roy. “So we resumed the same shifts: day, evening, night.”
All this while the team at Maison Marguerite also lost their work tools in the fire: computers, telephones, files. They had to buy everything, quickly, and settle into hotel rooms to try to resume a normal work rhythm.
“The workers and the entire team also experienced trauma, but we couldn’t really listen to each other and give each other support” because of the workload, remembers Mireille Roy.
Wounds reopened
The women at Maison Marguerite all have in common that they live in precarious conditions. The majority of them have lived on the streets, where they have suffered traumatic events and violence.
“As a result, even when they are young, they often have physical and mental health problems,” explains Mireille Roy about her guests, whose ages can range from 20 to 80.
Thanks to the work of Maison Marguerite, several women had managed to acquire greater autonomy, but the fire made them regress, explains the general director. The fire of April 29 reopened certain wounds that seemed to have healed. “Many had trauma, flashbackwhich had been settled, but which returned, triggered by the fire and the losses they suffered.
Since hotel rooms were not a sustainable solution, the Maison Marguerite team moved heaven and earth to rehouse its occupants. Some women were quickly able to be housed in other shelters for homeless people. In the case of those who were housed in their own studio, half were able to be located in social housing and the other half in subsidized apartments with community support.
Again, this was not without its challenges, particularly due to the bureaucratic requirements for accessing affordable housing.
“We went against our approach, which is to respect the person’s pace. It created a breach of trust that we are still repairing because the women felt pushed around. But we didn’t want them to end up on the street. So we helped them, we took the steps with them. It was difficult and burdensome,” says Mireille Roy.
A new beginning
Only three months after the fire, Maison Marguerite was able to open a new temporary accommodation centre, still in the Rosemont district.
“We wanted to stay in the same neighborhood so as not to uproot our women. We were really happy to have found it,” says the general manager.
When passing the Duty By early August, the team and residents were already well settled into these new premises. These large premises have been refurbished and repainted white to welcome their new tenants. The extensive woodwork adds character to the place, which has several welcoming common areas. Each woman has her own room where she can stay for a maximum of six weeks, benefit from three meals a day, a clothing counter and psychosocial support.
“It’s very warm,” says Pascale Gilbert. “It feels more like being in a house than in a residential institution.”
Despite everything, the management is eager to return to its former premises, which should be refurbished and reoccupied in the spring of 2026. In particular because the administration and the team that provides post-accommodation follow-up for former residents are located in another building. But above all to offer a little stability to the women they help.
“For anyone, a disaster like this is always difficult,” says Mireille Roy, “but for women who were already vulnerable, who have already experienced trauma, it’s even worse.”