A troubling situation is the topic of this week’s look at Cochrane history.
On the front page of the Northland Post of September 29th, 1982, is a report about time and money running out on Maison de Retour, the residential treatment centre for chronic alcoholics in Northeastern Ontario.
Public library archivist Ardis Proulx-Chedore reads from the report:
“Director Dan Skwarok and two other full-time workers at the building were laid off with the closure, along with a part-time employee, according to Cochrane councillor Bob LaBelle, who broke the news to council at Monday night’s council meeting.”
The director blamed the situation mostly on insufficient provincial funding, but a rigid system that doesn’t take day-to-day contact with people into account.
“The centre, which opened in July of 1974, has provided service to two-hundred individuals since then. It was funded in part by the Ministry of Community and Social Services.”
Skwarok said there was a slim chance it would reopen.
Our weekly local history feature for Moose FM and My Cochrane Now Dot Com wouldn’t happen without the archives at the Cochrane Public Library.
