Security improvement planned for seniors

BY RAFFY BOUDJIKANIAN

raffy.boudjikanian@transcontinental.ca

A security coordination centre is in the wings for all Montreal-area low and affordable-rent housing units for seniors run by the Office Municipal d'Habitation de Montréal, seven of which are in the West Island.

"The centre will be linked to security cameras in all buildings, and patrollers will travel between our buildings 24 hours a day," said Valérie Rhême, a spokesperson for the organization.

The announcement came almost two months after the body of senior citizen

Rita St. Aubin was discovered in her apartment at the Edwin Crawford Residence in Pointe Claire six days after her death. However, Rhême said the project itself had been planned for several months.

"We divide the Island into three sectors, the south west, the north west and the east. There will be one vehicle for each of these sectors," said Rhême.

However, Nick Boassaly, 71, who serves on the tenants' committee at Edwin Crawford, was in disbelief. "They have broken 99.9 per cent of the promises they have made," Boassaly, who has lived at Edwin Crawford since 1999, said.

"If you talk to 100 people in this building, they will tell you the same thing," Boassaly continued. Since St. Aubin's death, Boassaly said the tenant's committee has repeatedly tried to contact the Office, but to no avail.

Boassaly said that he would not be happy with the solution even if he thought that it was true. "Would you be satisfied if your mother lived here and you knew that all that she had was a car that goes by the building once in a while?" He asked.

Edwin Crawford neighbours another residence, Maywood, on Maywood Avenue. Unlike Crawford, Maywood is an affordable housing unit for seniors. This means rent is more expensive, but the building has an on-site, daytime director, receptionist, and administrative assistant. Des Sources Residence in Dollard des Ormeaux is the same.

Currently, the Office's affordable housing residences use trained residents as guards. "They go on duty as soon as the employees leave for the day," said Rhême. "Our residents (in affordable housing units) also have alert buttons in their rooms that they can press when something is wrong," she explained.

As for low-rent housing units like Edwin Crawford, there is now one "guard resident" who is there part-time. "He went on holiday for three weeks and they didn't even send anyone to replace them," Boassaly said.

After St. Aubin's death, Rhême said one of the organization's first actions was to propose a sign-hanging program to the residents in Edwin Crawford. "It's called the 'On est seuls' program," she said. On a voluntary basis, tenants who live by themselves may hang up signs on their doors to indicate that. Their neighbours would then have the responsibility to alert the organization. She said residents seemed enthusiastic about that idea.

"There has been no improvement whatsoever," Boassaly said.

The Office Municipal d'Habitation de Montréal is funded by the city of Montreal, as well as the provincial and federal governments. Their centre for security coordination is scheduled to begin operating this May.