The atmosphere is good-natured. The family is temporarily staying with Leydi, a friend who lives with her two daughters and sister.
Leydi wants to help them. She is Afro-Colombian and also an asylum seeker.
Altogether they are nine in four and a half from Montreal North.
Crowded but happy.
Yoseline, her 10-day-old baby and her children Jeilyn, 4, and Jean-Pierre, 10
Photo: Radio Canada / Julie Marceau
Leydi arrived in Canada before Yoseline’s family. Her eldest daughter goes to school.
The children already love each other, even though they have only known each other for a few days.
Their laughter echoes through the neighborhood as they pull themselves up onto a car-tanned snow pile. It’s -15 degrees. Yoseline’s children don’t have mittens.
A pity. Jean-Pierre is the king of the mountains!
The children of the two asylum-seeking families have fun together.
Photo: Radio Canada / Julie Marceau
The two families traveled through many countries before arriving in Canada. They made part of the journey by plane, which consumed most of their savings, but mostly by bus and on foot, sometimes in dangerous areas like the desert of Mexico on the American border.
Yoseline and her children, who arrived via Roxham Road in December 2022, say they are fleeing the violence.
Do you miss where you used to live? we ask Jeilyn, 4 years old.
No, because a lot of people kill there and I don’t want to die, she replies. I want to stay alive to learn letters.
Jeilyn dreams of becoming a ballerina, a flight attendant or a chef. But mostly ballerina.
Jeilyn takes us outside. She wants to show us something: “Mira, mira, el sol,” she says. “The sun, look how beautiful it is. »
Photo: Radio Canada / Julie Marceau
A turning point for Yoseline and her family
Upon arrival in Canada, Yoseline’s family was sent to one of the 1,800 hotel rooms reserved by the federal government and paid for by Ottawa in December 2022. The shelters of the Quebec-administered Regional Program for the Reception and Integration of Asylum Seekers (PRAIDA) were full.
However, when migrants end up in a federal hotel, they are not assigned a social worker or laborer, in contrast to the organization prevalent in provincial shelters.
So it’s a chance to be able to count on friends who are already in the country. But a week later when we visit her again, luck has already changed for Yoseline and her family.
Neighbors complained about the noise. The owner therefore learned that there were nine people in the accommodation. Leydi has to ask her to leave so as not to get into trouble herself.
It’s the excitement of finding another home. You’ve got a welfare check in your pocket for a few hundred dollars.
Yoseline tells us that her husband Jonathan has found an apartment in the Côte-des-Neiges area. Rental cost: $1250 per month.
While the parents are busy packing the little they have, namely the winter clothes and the baby’s things, into garbage bags, Jeilyn and Jean-Pierre have a carefree fun.
Jeilyn and Jean-Pierre are unaware of their parents’ concerns about finding apartments in the greater Montreal area.
Photo: Radio Canada / Julie Marceau
I can’t wait to go because we will have more space to play, says Jean-Pierre.
All discussions are in Spanish. We sometimes use translation software. The cameraman who works with the author of these lines, Isabelle Barzeele, also speaks Spanish, which facilitates discussions.
$1,250 for a renovated condo
The next day the family sends us a video. We see that the five of them slept together on the sheets on the floor, but what they want to show us is that the apartment is under construction.
The kitchen is not functional.
Photo: Radio Canada / Julie Marceau
We go to the crime scene. The accommodation is inadequate and it is difficult to stay there without coughing.
Since arriving at the apartment, Yoseline has been telling us that her baby is sick. He throws up in front of us.
Jonathan holds his baby in his arms in a moment of great discouragement.
Photo: Radio Canada / Julie Marceau
Jeilyn has so much eczema that she scratched until she bled. Jean-Pierre coughs and says his lungs hurt.
The apartment as discovered by Yoseline and Jonathan’s family
Photo: Radio Canada / Julie Marceau
The caretaker tells them not to worry. She offers them free accommodation in another apartment in the Saint-Michel district until the work on this one is finished. She advises them to get there by subway.
We accompany her to the other apartment. It’s in the basement. Otherwise the picture speaks for itself.
The apartment was left in poor condition.
Photo: Radio Canada / Julie Marceau
Jonathan is beside himself. How did you come up with the idea of sending me and my family over here to this pigsty? [esta cochineza]? he says to the manager.
She says she is helpless. Impossible to speak to the owner.
The family is monolingual Spanish speakers and no shelter manager speaks Spanish that Thursday night.
For months, the Premier of Quebec has been blaming Ottawa for the massive influx of migrants down Roxham Road. Last year there were almost 40,000, and the aid organizations are sparsely saturated. Although some are now being rerouted to Ontario, 7,000 asylum seekers, including women and children, are currently seeking homes in Montreal. Julie Marceau accompanied a Colombian family and their obstacle course for a month.
All shelters that can accommodate a family are full in Montreal, but there are still places in some drug shelters.
There are shelters where it is possible to rest. But the migrants have to leave in the morning, and these are places where they can share with people who consume, who are addicted, explains a speaker.
A temporary fix…
After a few hours, the family learns that there is a vacancy at the Latraverse Accommodation Center in North Montreal.
Yosemine seems to have finally found help.
Photo: Radio Canada / Julie Marceau
The family goes there. She is safe at last, in a sane place that provides food and bedding.
At the same time, we learn about an animal shelter that would soon have to close its doors.
Yoseline and her children at the Latraverse residential center. You share a room with other asylum seekers.
Photo: Radio Canada / Isabelle Barzeele
Indeed, in January, the owner of the vicarage where the accommodation is located, the Fabrique de la Parish Sainte-Gertrude, submitted a notice of non-renewal of the lease.
He’s demanding thousands of dollars in rent arrears.
Yoseline has agreed to stay in touch with us over the coming weeks.
In collaboration with Ximena Sampson