Very early on Sunday morning, a fire broke out in a building on Rue Asselin in Saint-Tite-des-Caps. The fire broke out around 5 a.m. in the top floor of the 13-unit building. The roof quickly burst into flames.
The Côte-de-Beaupré Fire Department arrived to assist the community’s firefighters. About forty firefighters were on site.
“These are older people who may be taking medication to help them sleep or removing their hearing aids. The evacuation took longer,” Patrick Goupil, director of the Beaupré, Saint-Joachim and Saint-Tite-des-Caps fire departments, told Radio-Canada.
Fortunately, all tenants were able to leave the building safely. However, the victims have to find new accommodation. The building is a total loss. This will not be an easy task because living space is scarce. Even cheaper.
“We will work very hard to ensure they have a roof over their heads. The teams are already in action,” says Sébastien Olivier, Director of Communications and External Relations at Société d’habitation du Québec, Le Soleil.
The municipal housing office (OMH) of Côte-de-Beaupré has been on site since Sunday morning. In a major case like this, the Quebec OMH was also dispatched to the scene of the fire. The two agents work hand in hand to handle the situation.
Sébastien Olivier reiterates that the majority of the victims are currently staying with relatives. The others were taken over by the Red Cross. An emergency and not a permanent solution.
The mayor of Saint-Tite-des-Caps, Majella Pichette, estimates that the reconstruction could take “up to a year” and that in the long run the relocation of these people is “a problem to be solved”, he also said on the state’s airwaves group.
But there is hope.
“According to the rules for the allocation of social housing, as a victim of a disaster you have priority on the waiting list. The victims are then at the top of the list. »
— Sébastien Olivier, director of communications and external relations at the Société d’habitation du Québec
The cooperation between the OMH of Côte-de-Beaupré and Quebec should also make it possible to find a solution quickly.
“Collaboration with the Office de Québec, which manages almost 12,000 subsidized housing units, opens up further opportunities. The goal isn’t to uproot the victims from their communities, but we suspect that in a community the size of Saint-Tite-des-Caps there really aren’t any other options,” explains M. . Olivier.
Some could therefore be relocated elsewhere on the Côte-de-Beaupré or in Quebec.