Home » НОВОСТИ » ЖИЛЬЦЫ АМЕРИК » Canada, FRAPRU to organise a “the 4-‘lesses’ Camp” for the Celebration of Quebec’s 400 years

Mostra/Nascondi il menu

Canada, FRAPRU to organise a “the 4-‘lesses’ Camp” for the Celebration of Quebec’s 400 years

Friday, 14th March 2008-00:06

FRAPRU has dubbed this event the “the 4-‘lesses’ Camp” as “it will address the homeless, the penniless, the less privileged, the voiceless.”

The camp will start on June 26th and has planned a national demonstration for the 28th in the streets of Quebec.

FRAPRU made the announcement on Tuesday 11th March on the occasion of a march by around 250 persons from the Ministry of Finance on Saint Louis Street, the site of the “Abitation”, built by Samuel de Champlain on his arrival in Quebec.

Even if it continues to demand investments in social housing in the March 13 budget, the Front d’action populaire en réaménagement urbain is already preparing a powerful strike for summer 2008: within the framework of the celebration of Quebec’s 400th anniversary, it will organise a camp which aims to highlight the magnitude and gravity of the housing problems and increase pressure on the Quebec government.

FRAPRU has dubbed this event the “the 4-‘lesses’ Camp” as “it will address the homeless, the penniless, the less privileged, the voiceless.” The camp will start on June 26th and has planned a national demonstration for the 28th in the streets of Quebec.

FRAPRU made the announcement on Tuesday 11th March on the occasion of a march by around 250 persons from the Ministry of Finance on Saint Louis Street, the site of the “Abitation”, built by Samuel de Champlain on his arrival in Quebec. Coordinator of FRAPRU, Francois Saillant explained the choice of this site: “Upon his arrival in Quebec, Champlain’s first preoccupation was to build a dwelling to house all his people. 400 years later, this need still exists. The right to housing is not always respected for a large part of the population that is homeless, living in deplorable conditions, face discrimination or that has to spend an enormous part of their income just to have a roof over their head.”

The organisation explained that in no way does it want to ruin the celebrations of the 400th anniversary, but he mainly wants to attract attention to one area that is often hidden from the history and the current reality of Quebec and the Old Capital in particular. Veronique Laflamme, a representative in the Saint-Jean-Baptiste district, estimates that summer 2008 will be particularly hard for tenants in Quebec. She notes, “since the rate of inoccupation of housings for rental should be 3%, it is only 1.2% in the metropolitan region of Quebec, and has fallen to 0.9% in the case of two-bedroom family houses and bigger. With regards to low-income family housing, they are almost non-existent, which is not surprising, given that the cost of housing has increased by an average of 24% since 2000.

FRAPRU took advantage of the announcement of the “4-‘lesses’ camp” to launch a last appeal to the Minister of Finance, Monique Jerome-Forget before she presents the budget on Thursday, that there should be absolutely no cuts in the budget. The organisation believes she should at least announce the continuation of the AccesLogis programme -the only one that allows financing of new social housing- for preferably a five-year period.

He stated that the demand for the continuation of AccesLogis had been endorsed by a petition that collected almost 29,000 names in only a few weeks and that it had been largely resumed in the municipal areas, by the Quebec Union of Municipalities, Quebec Federation of Municipalities, among others, as well as the cities of Quebec, Montreal and Sherbrooke,

FRAPRU adds that the 2000 houses in two years announced in the 2007 budget have already been occupied, so access to social housing will be completely impossible, without the addition of supplementary funds this year.

Francois Saillant states: “if FRAPRU has announced the holding of the “4-‘lesses’ Camp” two days before the presentation of the budget, it is because it is already convinced that it will not meet the expectations of housing needs.” He also added “one thing that Minister Jerome-Forget can still do that will still help us despite everything, is to confirm the extension and improvement of AccesLogis, thus preventing us from once more taking another step backward.”