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Chinatown resident Qing Shui Sun (right) says he does not want Stella to move its offices to Chinatown. (Zachary Cheung, CityNews)<\/p>\nA planned move by sex worker support organization Stella has sparked concern among some Chinatown residents, who say they weren\u2019t consulted.<\/p>\n
Chinatown\u2019s Suzanne Felx says the lack of consultation shows a \u201clack of respect\u201d on the part of the city, \u201cespecially Chinese residents.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not because we don\u2019t like Stella,\u201d Felx said. \u201cBut there must be another place in Montreal where they can offer their services. Why again in Chinatown?\u201d<\/p>\n
Stella says the space would mainly be used as an office for staff and a place to offer support services to sex workers.<\/p>\n
\u201cStella has been working in this neighbourhood for over 30 years,\u201d said Stella\u2019s executive director Sandra Wesley.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been involved in this area, so we\u2019re not new.\u201d<\/p>\n
The group now worries a city-imposed delay could jeopardize its purchase of the building.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us it does pose a pretty big problem because we have a seller who was very patient and very generous to come into a contract with us with all the delays that came with this approval from the city,\u201d Wesley told CityNews. \u201cIt took many months. We\u2019ve been in process since November. It was approved in December at the residence committee and it had to be approved now in February.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo there now might be an opportunity for the seller to change his mind and cancel the transaction. So for us, that\u2019s very stressful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Residents say the issue is less about Stella specifically, and more about what they describe as an uneven concentration of social services in Chinatown.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will change the colour of the street. It will change the atmosphere of the street,\u201d said Chinatown resident Qing Shui Sun.<\/p>\n
Chinatown resident Qing Shui Sun (right) says he does not want Stella to move its offices to Chinatown. (Zachary Cheung, CityNews)<\/p>\n
Stella is currently based in Montreal\u2019s Hochelaga neighbourhood. In December, the organization got the green light from the city\u2019s urban planning advisory committee to relocate its head office to a building on H\u00f4tel-de-Ville Avenue.<\/p>\n
But at a Ville-Marie borough council meeting last week, the new administration postponed final approval for a month.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we want to ensure is that the residents who live around the project you have been working on for so long welcome you in a positive way,\u201d said Montreal Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada.<\/p>\n
In a statement to CityNews, Ville-Marie borough council councillor Leslie Roberts said: \u201cStella is following the usual regulatory process for the development of its new headquarter. Since a residential building will be used as offices, the organization must comply with the conditional use requirements. We understand the fatigue linked to social issues experienced by residents of Chinatown. That is why we have decided to take the time to clearly explain the project to residents.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018We\u2019re not a shelter\u2019<\/p>\n
Stella says it understands concerns from residents but insists it is not the type of organization they fear.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not an organization that provides any services, such as supervised injection, or we don\u2019t provide any housing whatsoever. And we\u2019re not a shelter,\u201d Wesley explained.<\/p>\n
The group provides one-on-one counselling for sex workers, workshops and gives out supplies like condoms and menstrual products.<\/p>\n
It also hosts small group activities like book clubs and movie nights aimed at reducing isolation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis afternoon we have a workshop on income tax and how to prepare an income tax return. So we do those types of activities,\u201d Wesley said.<\/p>\n
Apart from staff, Stella says only a small number of people will access their services on-site.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s really no risk whatsoever that we would be bringing an influx of people to the neighbourhood,\u201d said Wesley. \u201cEspecially not sex workers to practise sex work in the neighbourhood.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, some residents say this is about a bigger picture, saying they want to be properly consulted before decisions are made.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I would like them to be elsewhere, that organizations offer care elsewhere,\u201d Felx said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there are too many services to be mixed in our neighbourhood, it will aggravate the security and the security of the neighbourhood,\u201d added Shui Sun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A planned move by sex worker support organization Stella has sparked concern among some Chinatown residents, who say…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":["post-484055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}