Social Service Struggles in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, Montreal

Today is the last episode of Metropolis. In our concluding episode, we bring on Lital Khaikin, a freelance journalist and author based in Montréal, to discuss social and health services in a neighbourhood sparsely covered by English language media in Montreal. Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, a working-class francophone neighbourhood in the city's east, has been transforming over the last twenty years. Gentrification has often caused layered changes not only to the neighbourhood's character but also to its public services, which, like Québec's public health system, are deteriorating in quality and access.

Lital Khaikin covers this unfortunate development in the French language publication Pivot through her article entitled "De plus en plus dur d'accéder aux services sociaux et de santé dans Hochelaga-Maisonneuve" or The growing difficulties accessing social and health services in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.

Lital paints a portrait of how underserved the neighbourhood is in health services and how local community groups are trying to fill these ever-growing gaps. Issues of accessibility range from physical difficulties experienced by a growing aging population navigating poorly paved sidewalks and roads to the lack of technological literacy required to navigate an increasingly digitized world of services offered by public institutions. 

Lital Khaikin presents Hochelaga-Maisonneuve as a microcosm of critical issues that broadly affect Montréal and Québec. Increased centralization is expected from the provincial government's Bill 15, An Act to make the health and social services system more effective. Lital says that the already stretched community groups, which are likely to receive little to no support due to this bill and that representatives from these groups are concerned about the potential ramifications of this bill and how more and more people will be falling through the cracks.