The development support organization Serviloge must suspend its project to transform the motherhouse of the Congregation of the Sisters of Notre-Dame-du-Saint-Rosaire into 84 housing units, officially filed in mid-December 2020.
Budgetary reasons are invoked in a press release received shortly before noon.
“Due to the lack of budget compared to the popularity of the Canadian Initiative for the Rapid Creation of Housing (ICRL) program, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) informed Serviloge on March 10 that it was suspending the confirmation new projects ”, we say.
However, the latter could obtain their funding if the federal government were to inject new funds into the program. Even if the Serviloge file met all the criteria of the ICRL, the Bas-Saint-Laurent remains to this day the only region of Quebec that has not benefited from it.
Disappointment
“For example, the neighboring regions of Gaspésie and Chaudière-Appalaches will each see five projects come to fruition. An early partner of Serviloge, the Office d’habitation Rimouski-Neigette (OHRN) welcomes this news with disappointment, since with a housing vacancy rate reaching 0.9% in greater Rimouski, the territory of the MRC Rimouski-Neigette is undergoing a housing crisis and therefore urgent action should be taken in the area of housing, ”maintains the organization.
Unmet needs
The OHRN reiterates that the housing needs for the most vulnerable clienteles in the community are currently not being met, considering the impossibility of the applicants to find adequate housing at current market prices. “This situation thus causes social problems which go beyond the housing sector and which have been growing steadily in recent years, which has direct repercussions on the socio-economic conditions of the entire community. “
The board of directors and managers of Serviloge are still pursuing their efforts to find new avenues of funding allowing the realization of the requalification project of the motherhouse of the Congregation of the Sisters of Notre-Dame du Saint-Rosaire, with their partners and the representatives of the Congregation.
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