Pointe St. Charles Revitilization
by Nancy Neamtan

Less than five years ago, the Pointe St.-Charles community in Montreal was facing economic crisis. Over 30% of the people were on welfare, 15% were unemployed, and the neighborhood's land was a prime target for speculation. The Pointe St.-Charles Economic Program (PEP) was created in 1984 by a coalition of local community groups in an effort to save the neighborhood. Its goals are to create permanent and decent jobs for local residents, help train the unemployed, give new life to the overall economy and develop the financial tools necessary to do this work on a long term basis. The program's founders are, with one exception, all women. PEP has helped individuals and groups set up small businesses by offering low cost management consulting services and small loans or loan guarantees. With two other Montreal community corporations, PEP established the Montreal Employment Development Fund to offer risk capital to new businesses. PEP has been involved in various forms of job skill training to help people in the neighborhood prepare for the newly created jobs. Dozens of local residents (welfare mothers, housewives, young people out of work) have been hired into neighborhood businesses.

The Program bas been vocal in pressuring various levels of government and the private sector and out of this pressure was born the Committee for the Renewal of Employment and the Economy in the Southwest of Montreal (CREESOM), made up of government, private sector, union and local representation, whose mandate is to find measures to improve the local economy. In terms of jobs created, the numbers eliminated from the unemployment and welfare statistics, the rate of profit, PEP has been astoundingly successful, but much work is still to be done. Many women have benefited from the program since their needs, such as childcare or emotional support, are often community based. PEP's project bas shown that economic success is related to harmonization of many factors, to assuring co-ordination between job creation and training and between investment and technical support. By this process of development our economy is democratized.

Nancy Neamtan has been active in the Quebec community movement since 1968. She is a founding member of PEP and works presently with the institute for Community Economic Development.