Montreal's 'chronically underfunded' community sector seeks additional $100 million per year

A group representing hundreds of community groups in Montreal is calling on the government to invest an additional $100 million per year in basic funding for groups working in health and social services, which it says are "chronically underfunded" and facing "a perpetual crisis." 

The Regroupement intersectoriel des organismes communautaires de Montréal (RIOCM), which represents 350 organizations, held a news conference Monday, accompanied by representatives of Quebec's three main opposition parties, to implore the government to hear its demands and prioritize the community sector in its upcoming budget. 

"[These organizations] are in survival mode," said RIOCM co-ordinator Marie-Andrée Painchaud-Mathieu. "Groups must fight every day to stay open."

According to the RIOCM, half of the 531 Montreal organizations it represents receive less than $160,000 per year from the government, and a fifth receive only $100,000 — an amount deemed insufficient, according to Painchaud-Mathieu. 

"That's barely enough to pay for our office space, and two people at a salary well below average. What do you want us to do with that?" she said. 

Lily Shwarzbaum is asking that same question. She works the front desk at the Carrefour d'Education Populaire in Pointe-Saint-Charles — one of Montreal's six popular education centres (CEP) — which has provided adult literacy programs, creative workshops, technological assistance and more in the neighbourhood for 50 years.

But Shwarzbaum says the centre, which currently operates out of a free space provided by the Centre de services scolaires de Montréal (CSSDM), is fighting for its future. According to a lease signed years ago, the CEP will need to start paying $37,000 in rent to the CSSDM come July, a price Shwarzbaum says will be impossible to pay. 

"We don't have the means to pay the lease, we don't have the means to pay utilities," she said of the centres, which are funded by the Education Ministry. "We are the community sector. We are a not-for-profit organization. We make sure that our activities are free to make sure they [stay] accessible to everyone in the neighbourhood."

In a statement to CBC, the CCSDM said it must start charging all six CEPs in order to cover maintenance and renovation costs for the buildings they're housed in — or be forced to cut programs to make up the difference. 

The CCSDM is an administrative body of the Education Ministry, "so, we're basically being told to pay money ... to the one who gives us our funding in the first place," said Shwarzbaum.

In a statement, the ministry said it is allocating nearly $360,000 to the Pointe-St-Charles CEP for the 2021-2022 year. Shwarzbaum describes the amount as a drop in the bucket of what's needed. 

She says the CCSDM and CEPs shouldn't be "fighting over peanuts,"  and the government should instead be funding all of these crucial public services with sustainable and recurrent funding.

'It's time to show us the money' 

At Monday's news conference, Painchaud-Mathieu argued that one-time investments from the government create even more problems due to the added administrative burden and their temporary nature, which prevent the retention of staff. 

"We get caught hiring contract workers, and as soon as we train them, they leave, because that's the end of the funding," she said. 

Painchaud-Mathieu said this turnover of staff — exacerbated by salaries that are "ridiculously low" — make it difficult to build ties with people in the communities that these groups serve.

Throughout the pandemic, she said the government has repeatedly thanked community organizations publicly, "yet it refuses to give us the means to do our work decently," she said. 

"It's all well and good to thank us, but now it's time to show us the money."

Opposition supports demands

The Liberal MNA for Montreal's Viau district, Frantz Benjamin, says it's high time Quebec Premier François Legault recognized the city's community groups as vital. 

"[They] play an essential role in a lot of critical issues that [Legault] ignores, denies, or blames on the pandemic," he said, citing housing, mental health, help for seniors, homelessness or those facing financial precariousness. 

Québec Solidaire health critic and MNA for Rosemont Vincent Marissal said community groups are more than useful, "they are our partners." He said the least the Legault government can do is meet with these groups, openly calling out Chantal Rouleau, the minister responsible for Montreal, who he says has not met with them since taking office more than three years ago. 

Parti Québécois leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon criticized the Legault government, saying it's "always very tempted by ad hoc announcements that allow them to make political statements." But those one-offs contribute to "the non-recurring, poorly targeted, hardly accessible" nature of the funding that these groups currently see. 

In a statement to CBC News, Minister Rouleau said the province has always been there for community organizations, adding that Quebec has increased funding to — and indexed — the Programme de soutien aux organismes communautaires to $90 million since she took office. 

"The health crisis has made poverty issues in Montreal more complex," she said. "And from the start, we took the time to support and listen to [organizations'] demands. We will continue to reach out to them."

But Benjamin says it's impossible to listen to people who have never been consulted. 

"You cannot be the spokesperson for your government on matters of community groups if you refuse to meet them," he said.