Teresa Kaeser

By Joel Ceausu
The Suburban

D’Arcy-McGee MNA Elisabeth Prass visited the Mosaik Family Resource Centre last week, as have thousands of families before her over the last 20 years, but she came toting along some high praise and official recognition from Quebec’s National Assembly for their tireless efforts to improve the lives of vulnerable families in Montreal’s west end.

Prass said she was “more than proud” to present a certificate of recognition from the National Assembly to co-directors Teresa Kaeser and Krystine Dobbs and their team, “for everything that you’ve done, everything that you’ll continue to do.” Noting the Centre on Côte Saint-Luc Road has been a crucial resource for families in NDG, Montreal West, Côte Saint-Luc, Hampstead and Snowdon since 2004, Prass says, “your team and all the volunteers who help every day and again, make countless differences in the lives of individuals.”

Mosaik assists local families with everything from early literacy programs and parenting workshops and lectures and services for fathers, to respite programs, emergency food pantry, clothing giveaways, toy lending service and hygiene products.

Organizations like Maison Mosaik fill crucial gaps in Quebec’s social safety net, Prass told The Suburban, and it’s problematic that they and their fellow community organizations don’t get enough state support. The main funding for community organizations comes from the Quebec government’s Programme de soutien aux organismes communautaires (PSOC), which is not significantly indexed from year to year. “So the money that they’re receiving doesn’t have the same value that it used to.” That means organizations like Mosaik see clientele increasing while funding remains more or less stagnant and buying power diminishes.

Last month, Mosaik held its annual Garage Sale Fundraiser to support their Emergency Food Pantry truck rental, which helps them feed hungry families in the west end. Its budget is up some 800 percent since its founding, last year serving almost 900 families. Since the pandemic, their outreach increased massively, as did the need, particularly with their emergency food pantry once they became certified with Moisson Montreal.

Prass says she’d like to propose in the next year that PSOC looks at “how many people the organization is serving from one year to the next, and that there will be a bonus if you were to increase based on the clientele… Inflation, clientele numbers… It’s a big program to reform and it would be province-wide, and there’s so many organizations receiving it, but I think that there needs to be certain aspects that are taken into consideration that aren’t taken right now.” She says regional orgs are particularly affected. “Organizations covering a large area like Gaspésie need three offices rather than one because of geography, and they’ll get the same amount of money as an organization in Montreal — which can go visit their clientele, or the clientele comes to them.” Transport, distance, and client mobility issues all make it harder in the regions and thus more expensive.

These resources not only fill gaps, but often have dual impact: “Someone looking for a child on the autism spectrum, will for example, be sent by the CLSC to a local organization like Friendship Circle. Well, they just took that person off their waiting list, so the government relies heavily on these community organizations to be able to accomplish their mandate as well.” These groups are such essential government partners in its social service network, says Prass, that “they should be treated as such.” n