‘GREY SQUARES’ ACT OUT
Residents will have to hand over medical records to security guards, install intercoms
NEW RULES IRK RETIREES Residents of Maison Chemin de la Côte residence bang pots and pans in front of their building on Côte-Ste-Catherine Rd. on Wednesday to protest new regulations for security in buildings like theirs. They say they won’t be able to afford such changes as 24-hour guards and the installation of intercoms. Jesse Feith has details,
A dozen tenants demonstrated in front of their apartment building for autonomous and semi-autonomous seniors in Côte-des-Neiges on Tuesday, speaking out against new provincial regulations for private seniors’ residences.
The new regulations would see the building equipped with a security guard 24 hours a day, intercoms in each room and oblige them to hand over their medical records to the new guards on duty. Residents of the low-rent building pay 25 per cent of their income toward rent every month, the balance of which is assumed by the Office Municipal d’habitation de Montréal. They’re afraid the proposed new services would be additional costs for them that they couldn’t afford.
“The fact is that the whole purpose of this building is to provide lowcost housing to people who have low revenues,” said Jean-Pierre Martin, tenant representative on the build- ing’s board of directors. “This goes completely against that.”
Besides the money issue, it’s the perceived invasion of privacy that’s bothering the tenants even more. They feel they should never be forced to hand over their medical records.
“I would be some kind of secondclass citizen,” said Martin. “The only reason why I would have to submit myself to this is because I have a low revenue, and that’s discrimination.”
Martin, 64, has lived in the building for eight years and said tenants have never had any issues with taking care of themselves.
“It’s as if as a group, they’re telling us that all of a sudden, we’re not capable of taking our situation into our own hands,” he said.
“We are like brothers here,” added 64-year-old Savu Bobaru. “We don’t need someone to come check on us. The police are close, the hospital is close and we have each other.”
Demonstrators called themselves the “Grey Squares” as a wink to both their age and the red square symbol associated with the tuitionhike protests two summers ago. They said Tuesday’s demonstra- tion, during which they also banged pots and pans, will probably be the first of many.