KC Jordan, LJI Reporter

A new social services bus is teaming up with a local Pontiac organization to offer essential services to people experiencing homelessness in the area.
The new “Réhabus” bus started roaming the streets last week with plans to travel across the Outaouais over the coming months, making stops in a handful of the region’s urban and rural communities.
In the Pontiac, the team offering the bus service will work with AutonHomme Pontiac, a non-profit in Campbell’s Bay that provides assistance to residents experiencing homelessness and other issues.
The bus is equipped with showers and washing machine and dryer, amenities people will be able to use for the duration of time the bus is parked in their community.
Jeffrey Lévesque, who works for Réhabex, the Gatineau-based social rehabilitation agency that owns and operates the bus, said the organization bought it to help people in situations of need.
“We bought it to help people who are living in homelessness or even just precarious situations.”
Lévesque said the bus also has desk spaces where counselors will be available to give people a hand finding a job, or even finding housing.
Pierre-Alain Jones, the director of AutonHomme, said this is where his organization comes in.
“We will help people find a place to stay,” he told THE EQUITY in French.
“We offer a shelter in Campbell’s Bay, we rent rooms at the motel in Shawville [ . . . ] and on occasion we rent rooms at a motel in Mansfield.”
In November, people living in AutonHomme temporary residences at the the Shawville were evicted due to a flea infestation.

Jones said that problem has been fixed, and that they are able to offer rooms to their clients in that motel once again.
“We have people right now on the territory who are homeless
[ . . . ] another service like this is going to help for sure,” Jones said, noting the Pontiac can be forgotten when it comes to social service delivery, so it’s nice to have a service from Gatineau reach out and provide help to the people of this region.
Lévesque said his organization’s goal is to help as many people as it can across the Outaouais.
When the idea for the bus was hatched, homeless people at the Robert-Guertin encampment in Gatineau weren’t getting the basic services they needed and deserved.
“The director, Patrick Pilon, found it unacceptable that there was no short-term solution for these people,” he told THE EQUITY in French.
“We realized there were many people who were not able to get to where the services were being offered, so with the Réhabus we said we could travel to them to give them an opportunity to use those services.”
Jones said AutonHomme is still in talks with Réhabex to figure out when, and how often, the bus will come to the Pontiac.
He said they hope the bus can park out front of their building on rue Front in Campbell’s Bay, or in the parking lot across the street.