Ahuntsic | A food bank ousted by the CSSDM

A food bank in the Ahuntsic district of Montreal will be evicted from its premises in the middle of the holiday season, on December 27. The Montreal School Service Center (CSSDM), owner of the building, plans to welcome its French students there.

What you need to know:

• Around ten community organizations, including a food bank, will have to leave their premises at the request of the CSSDM, which owns the building.
• The CSSDM wishes to use these premises for francization courses and accuses the organizations of not paying their full rent for several years.
• The mayor of the Ahuntsic-Cartierville district calls on the Legault government to act.

Wednesday marked one of the last food drives for the Nutrition and Community Action Service (SNAC). An hour before kickoff at 1 p.m., a line of several dozen people was already stretching in the parking lot, bags in hand, eager to leave with some provisions for the holidays.

“It’s going to be a big crisis for the people who come here. They give us a lot of things. It helps us a lot,” laments Nadia, who goes to SNAC twice a month to feed her family. The rain didn’t stop her from arriving three hours before opening, to be sure to get her hands on a basket of food.

Demand at the food bank continues to increase. Before the pandemic, SNAC helped 4,300 families per year. The organization now helps more than 8,000 of them. “I’m going to miss it,” confides Mila, who came to collect some food.

This could be their last collection, because the CSSDM plans to recover the building that houses the organization to install its francization center. Work is underway at the William-Hingston Complex, where these courses are currently taking place.

“That doesn’t make any sense. We are worried about the hundreds of families who come here,” says the director of SNAC, Chantal Comtois. Solidarité Ahuntsic, a consultation table made up of a dozen community organizations, including SNAC, have been housed for around twenty years in this building on rue Laverdure belonging to the CSSDM.

“We find it completely outrageous to be thrown out in the middle of Christmas, when everyone has needs,” exclaims the general director of Solidarité Ahuntsic, Rémy Robitaille. He says he is ready to challenge the CSSDM’s decision to avoid service disruptions.

A decision denounced by elected officials

This decision is strongly contested by the mayor of Ahuntsic-Cartierville, Émilie Thuillier, and the city councilor of the Ahuntsic district, Nathalie Goulet. They are asking the Quebec government to grant a budget to the CSSDM to rent other premises in the district in order to offer francization courses.

The mayor also asks the CSSDM to postpone the resumption of the premises for five years, pending the construction of the community center at the Écoquartier Louvain, which could accommodate these community organizations.

For its part, the CSSDM explains its decision by the increase in requests for French courses in the neighborhood. “In order to meet our primary mission of education and to avoid a breakdown in service in the absence of another real estate solution to accommodate all our students, we are obliged to regain full possession of the building,” said The Press the press relations manager of the CSSDM, Alain Perron.

Rent increase

In September, the CSSDM went to the Superior Court to try to recover $600,000 from this group of community organizations, accusing them of not paying their full rent for several years. Legal proceedings are still ongoing.

The CSSDM deplores having to assume the costs of electricity, heating and maintenance, while community organizations have benefited from a rent freeze for all these years.

Since 2018, community organizations have refused to sign leases with the CSSDM. They are bound “only by a 30-day tolerance lease,” says Mr. Perron. “They tried to increase the rent by 224%, so indeed, we contested this huge increase, but we always paid every month,” maintains Rémy Robitaille, of Solidarité Ahuntsic. The lease will be officially terminated from December 27.

With Marie-Eve Morasse, The Press