A place dedicated to children threatened to close its doors

Hugo Duchaine

Sunday, December 24, 2017 01:00

UPDATE
Sunday, December 24, 2017 01:00

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The only organization in the province who comes to the aid of children of parents in distress may have to close its doors, after six years, due to lack of money.

“Currently, we refuse to accept families. It would need to be hired in the world, the volunteers are not enough […] But I’m in debt up to the neck for this resource-there, ” says the founder of the House of Kangaroo, Josée Fortin.

Violence

“We go out the child from a context of stress or violence,” said Ms. Fortin. The House of Kangaroo has 10 beds for children from 0 to 12 years, which can be accommodated for a day or for a period of up to two weeks if necessary.

Vibrant colors, games, toys, nooks for reading, television sets and computers wait for the young while their parents rest.

“It is doing with the donations, we live it,” says Josée Fortin. The house located in the district of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, Montral has been fully renovated, on a volunteer basis. The food served there from the food banks. Private companies sometimes come to the aid of the organization.

After six years, Ms. Fortin deplores the fact that the Home Kangaroo receives no federal, provincial or municipal level, despite his requests. The organization, she said, is considered too young or different from what already exists.

Save lives

Yet, Josée Fortin is convinced that it saves lives. “So many families say to me : “If you hadn’t been there…” […] a few weeks ago, a mother with a baby of seven weeks called me saying that she wanted to kill herself with him “, she continued.

One of the mothers who appealed to the organization, Carolina (fictitious name), has agreed to share his story under the guise of anonymity. With three children 6 years and under, of which one must deal with several problems of development and of language, she was afraid to explode this summer.

“I wanted to hit,” she says about her son. He had experienced multiple seizures, that she could no longer manage. She was on leave without pay for the care of the children while his spouse worked 80 hours a week so they can make ends meet.

“[Josée Fortin] has really defused my crisis, ” she said. The two women spoke more than two hours on the phone and Caroline is subsequently gone to him to bring her three children for 24 hours.

As a single mother and heavily diabetic, Valérie Thibault has used the services of the house when she had to go to emergency at the hospital, without friend or family to look after her three children. “The Home [Kangaroo] saved me “, she says.

Emergency Service

Josée Fortin repeat, his body is a service of emergency and non-emergency respite. But now, she is forced to decide which cases are more urgent than the other, since it cannot meet the demand.

“It takes us donors,” she continued, hoping to find generous donors during the Holiday season.