13 community groups refuse to leave Montreal centre despite eviction order

Thirteen community groups refused to vacate a community centre in Montreal’s Ahuntsic neighbourhood Friday despite an eviction order, saying they don’t have anywhere else to go.

Rémy Robitaille, director of Solidarité Ahuntsic, which represents the 13 groups in the building, says the organizations provide vital services for immigrants, refugees and seniors, as well as food bank services and French language classes for newcomers — a total of 25,000 people each year.

Centre de services scolaire de Montréal (CSSDM), which owns the building, says it has rented the space to groups that serve the community but now needs the spaces to provide French language instruction for newcomers.

In a statement to CityNews, the CSSDM says: “The role played by these organizations cannot be accomplished to the detriment of the schooling mission of the CSSDM, which is already under heavy pressure in the northern sector of the city. In particular, we need to relocate our William-Hingston francization centre to the premises occupied by Solidarité Ahuntsic, given the scale of the work and the need to free up many premises within the William-Hingston Complex.

“In order to meet our primary mission of schooling and avoid a service disruption in the absence of another real estate solution to accommodate all of our students, we must regain full possession of the building.”

The CSSDM also accuses Solidarité Ahuntsic of refusing to sign a lease since 2018, adding that the case is now before the courts.

Robitaille says the school service centre raised the monthly rent for the whole building from about $8,000 to $24,000 – an increase the groups have refused to pay, saying they will only leave if forced to by the courts. 

Chantal Comtois of the SNAC food bank (Service de nutrition et d’Action communautaire), one of the community groups facing eviction, says a move from the current location would mean displacing these groups into separate locations. It’s something she doesn’t want.

“What we want everybody to stay together,” the group’s director general said. “That’s our wish for 2025.”

“If we cannot find another place to move, it’s all the population of Ahuntsic that will be in trouble because there is no no place in Ahuntsic where we can go.”

Comtois said many challenges would occur if they had to move the food bank charity, which donated $2 million worth of food to thousands of families last year.

New community centre to be built

Ahuntsic-Cartierville borough Mayor Émilie Thuillier is asking the Quebec government to allow the organizations to stay in place until they can move into a new community centre — in Écoquartier Louvain — that will be built nearby in the coming years, and to give the school service centre more funding so it can rent space elsewhere for its French classes.

“We have been working on the plan because we have a plan, the plan is to build a new community centre, the place is city-owned,” Thuillier told CityNews. “Next year we are constructing a building on St-Hubert Street corner Louvain. So the city will de-construct it and the city will give it for free to the community groups.

She adds that people are currently able to receive French language instruction in the building and that its state of disrepair means there will be a three-to four-year wait for those classes if the school service centre does take over. 

“We need the government of Quebec and the ministers that are concerned with the community groups to see that these groups are so important and that we can accommodate CSSDM with other rooms.”

“If the need to do French classes is really urgent, this is not the solution.”

Added Comtois: “I just want to see that the ministry, we can speak together to find something. I want to stay there, all the organizations we want to stay there, and to say, ‘OK, let’s work together to find something.'”