Resilient!

Resilience Montreal, a day centre close to Cabot Square in downtown Montreal, has to find a new home for homeless people, many of whom are Inuit. The Minister responsible for Native Affairs, Ian Lafreniere, announced assistance to the tune of $600,000 at a weekend news conference meant to help find a home. Nakuset is the executive director of the Native Women’s Shelter and the co-Manager for Resilience Montreal:

“Since we moved into the building, which was about a year ago in November, we knew that we had to find another location because they would be turning this building into a condo. So, we have been looking actively for the last 6 to 8 months for another location and we saw three potential buildings, one that I actually adore and we’re in the process of trying to buy a building.”

Resilience is working with numerous partners:

“It’s really amazing news that (they’re) willing to give us $600,000 dollars to this new building, but we’re also working with a lot of other partners who we’re fundraising with…that help locate buildings and find the other financing through government grants.”

Nakuset saying that it’s now very positive:

“So things are looking good, because we have to be out of the building by April, so if we get the ball rolling now and get a confirmation within the next couple of weeks, then we can start moving in. We already have an architect selected for the new building and we’ll be talking about the different levels of services and the different floors for the services.”

The money from the Quebec government comes from the Native Initiatives Fund III for the acquisition and development of a building by April, when the organization will have to leave its current location, at the intersection of Atwater Ave. and Sainte-Catherine Street.