#WORLD #WORLDWIDE #CANADA #ANARCHISM #News #Journal #Update - (en) #Canada, Collectif Emma Goldman - A look back at the solidarity action with the evicted from the auto-station squat (ca, de, it, fr, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Last Saturday, April 9, the anarchist Collectcif Emma Goldman carried out a

solidarity action with the thirty people who were evicted from the squat at the
auto-station in downtown Chicoutimi. In addition to the free soup and bread,
leaflets were distributed to passers-by to discuss the situation of the poorest
in this sector of Chicoutimi. We also installed a bed, blankets and a sofa in the
former squat, a symbolic action that aims to promote mutual aid and solidarity
rather than repression and stigmatization. Law enforcement officers will surely
throw this facility out as soon as possible as 'security' guards are on watch 24
hours a day to make sure no one comes back to take refuge there. Thousands of
dollars of public money to finance the repression of the most vulnerable. A far
from brilliant portrait for the new municipal administration, which continues in
the same line as its predecessors.

Mireille Jean, new councilor for district 8, of which the city center is a part,
hammers home the security discourse. Security for whom? Merchants and their
customers? But what about the safety of homeless people who are thrown out in
cold weather? She wants to ensure the safety of people who are only passing
through downtown. Those who come to eat in restaurants and shops or work there
and then return to their outlying districts. The security that people at the town
hall talk about does not include the poorest who live in this neighborhood, but
are erased. Between the "business" district becoming the "digital" district and
the increase in repression, it is not good to live in the city center for the
poor. The politicians who sit in the town hall want a smooth neighborhood where
shops, restaurants and digital companies reign in Ubisoft sauce while the poor
are pushed into the bordering neighborhoods, as if they were going to disappear.
Poverty will only change places, but it will still be there.

Finally, here is the text of the leaflet that was distributed during the event:

"If there are destitute people in society, people without asylum, without clothes
and without bread, it is because the society in which we live is badly organized.
We cannot admit that there are still people who are starving when others have
millions to spend on turpitude. It is this thought that revolts me! - Anarchist
Louise Michel (1830-1905)

It's all very well the European-style places and the cruise ships developed at
great expense by successive administrations in Ville Saguenay, but behind these
ideas of grandeur, there is a sad reality. A grim reality where the municipal
administration, a supposedly local level of government, is not even able to
provide the basic needs of all the people who live on its territory. Indeed, the
city struggles to ensure that everyone has a roof and sanitary facilities
available regardless of the people's means or conditions. Worse, she looks away
when confronted with the problem, even amplifies it.

It should therefore come as no surprise when resources are insufficient or do not
meet the needs of individuals, that people decide to organize themselves and take
what they find nearby. It's something everyone would consider doing in the same
situation. The occupation of the stairwell of the Le Havre bus station by some
thirty squatters and squatters came to fill a need for accommodation near the
various services in the city center (soup kitchen, community groups, the Maison
homeless, etc.). Remember that women do not have access to the Homeless Home.
They must then be accommodated in homes for women who are victims of domestic
violence. However, these latter do not do not accept women under the effects of
consumption (drugs, alcohol, etc.), so many find themselves on the street without
resources. However, the city prefers to look away and deflect the debate on the
security issue.

Vil Saguenay: hide his itinerant men and women whom I cannot see

If the city has still not released the funds to repaint the place, it
nevertheless quickly found the budget to hire a private security agency to
prevent the return of squatters and squatters. A small detail that the new Dufour
administration failed to mention to the public during its communication
operation. By the same token, she admits that the problem of homelessness remains
intact and that the city does not plan to remedy it in any way except for the
hunt for the poor that it carries out downtown. . Mission accomplished according
to the town hall! They reassured merchants and consumers no doubt congratulated
the municipal bureaucrats comfortably seated behind their desks as well as their
armed wing, the Saguenay police.

Make no mistake, this is not inevitable, even less a question of means, because
remember that at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the city had opened the
doors of its facilities at the old port of Chicoutimi. to accommodate homeless
people. The resource has closed, but the needs remain just as urgent. Note the
immense need for quality and affordable housing. Will we have to wait for the
media's big food drive or the extreme cold of winter to look into the issue of
homelessness and find solutions? It is now that the city must look into it in
order to find a lasting solution so that no one is left behind.

This could start with the opening of heat shelters in winter and massive
investment in the development of quality housing at low cost.

Posted 21 hours ago by Collectif Emma Goldman

http://ucl-saguenay.blogspot.com/2022/04/retour-sur-laction-de-solidarite-avec.html
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