With its twelve beds reserved for women and their children, the Manteau is the only CHRS in Saint-Martin and is therefore subsidized by the State. The association, whose premises are made available by the COM, currently has 15 employees. After Irma, there were only 6 out of 12. Since then, some have left, others have returned and to meet the needs, jobs have been created.
Thanks to the prefecture, four positions in 20-hour subsidized contracts were created for a period of ten months, and the Fondation de France made it possible to hire two people on a 35-hour fixed-term contract for one year.
Between September and December, Le Manteau operated in reduced numbers. Food distributions take place twice a week, and three times a week for clothing collected in greater numbers. They are carried out with the help of a Red Cross team and secured by the gendarmes and the army. The food comes from the Red Cross, the Guadeloupe / COM food bank and donations from associations in France and Guadeloupe.
Its reinforced team, the association has been able to resume normal operation since December 2017. And in particular the workshops (cooking, homework help, groups for women victims of violence, and open houses with games and speaking groups on Friday morning), preparing breakfasts and lunches for users, access to sanitary and laundry facilities, social support, etc.
But Irma's stigma is still there and Le Manteau continues, with the authorization of the State, the distribution of food parcels managed by the COM and shared between the various associations of the island. "But since the end of June, the association can no longer respond to user requests for lack of food," explains Audrey Gil.
For the past month, Le Manteau has been wearing the SIAO previously based in Guadeloupe. The Integrated Reception and Orientation Services (SIAO) were created in France in 2010 in order to improve the care of homeless or poorly housed people. Ultimately, the objective is that all the large associations in the area use the same software to enter user data in order to obtain an image of the real needs of the population and to list them.
In addition, the association had opened a thrift store in February 2017. It is still well stocked thanks to numerous donations from the local population but also from collections carried out in mainland France. However, the roof of the building having been damaged by the hurricane, the premises suffered from water infiltration. The thrift store therefore operates in slow motion and is only open on Wednesday morning from 9 am to noon. All items are for one euro.
The association hopes to relocate within a year. Audrey Gil announces: "there will be twelve places for women and twenty for family pensions (people in social, physical or psychological difficulty)". She crosses her fingers so that everything goes as planned.
For now, she adds: “what is most lacking today is food to give”.
(More details on www.soualigapost.com)
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