CAAP-Outaouais' annual report casts Le District's loss of seniors status as its defining case of the year

Tashi Farmilo

CAAP-Outaouais has used its newly released annual report to single out Le District's loss of seniors residence status as the defining file of its year, detailing months of support for close to 200 tenants of the Aylmer complex. Owner Katasa Group announced the change on June 16, 2025, and the building's retirement certification was removed on April 1, 2026.

The report, the organization's 32nd, devotes its special dossier for 2025-2026 to the case, framing it as the clearest example of a growing demand on the Gatineau-based group, which helps users of the health and social services network understand their rights and, through a separate service launched in 2019, assists residents of private seniors' homes with their leases.

Katasa, which owns the riverside development in the Faubourg du Rivage neighbourhood, cast the change as an evolution rather than a shutdown. In its June 2025 announcement, the company said no resident would be required to leave, that around-the-clock staff, a daytime receptionist and community programming would remain, and that continuing tenants would receive a $300 monthly lease credit and a two-year rent freeze. Removing the certification from the building's first two phases, it said, would move Le District to a fully independent-living model for adults 50 and older and secure the residence's long-term viability.

The annual report tells a more anxious story from the residents' side. Losing the résidence privée pour aînés designation ended the regulated care tied to that status, and the organization says the announcement quickly raised fears among tenants and families about rent, disappearing services and what recourse remained. According to the document, counsellors who had already presented at the residence in French and in English before the change was made public fielded a heavy volume of questions in the months that followed and organized additional meetings to explain the loss of status and the options open to each person.

Katasa's own statement lent some weight to those concerns. Alongside its assurances of continuity, the company acknowledged "service changes," said it was offering transition support to affected residents, and noted it was working with care staff to identify roles elsewhere in its network, an indication that the care component of the residence was winding down even as the building stayed open.

The report says the organization also met with the residence's comité de milieu de vie, with management and with the seniors residence certification team at the CISSS de l'Outaouais and estimates it supported close to 200 residents through the transition. A presentation to tenants at the building took place July 28, 2025.

The document places the file in a wider context its authors clearly want readers to notice. More than 500 private seniors residences have closed across Quebec in recent years, according to figures from the Regroupement québécois des résidences pour aînés reported by Radio-Canada, as owners contended with rising operating and labour costs, and some buildings have been converted to conventional rental housing. Questions tied to eviction, closure or a change in a residence's vocation now rank among the most common reasons tenants contact the organization's leasing service.

That service handled 175 files in 2025-2026, up 42 per cent over two years, part of more than 670 new files the organization opened across all its services during the year. CAAP-Outaouais, which works independently of the health network and offers its help free of charge, closes its report on the District case by arguing that it illustrates a mounting need for accompaniment as more seniors' residences in the region change hands or change vocation, a claim the year's numbers are meant to support.

CAAP-Outaouais' latest annual report highlights its support of nearly 200 tenants at Aylmer's Le District as the defining case of the year, after owner Katasa Group stripped the complex of its private seniors residence status, a change announced June 16, 2025 and completed April 1, 2026. Photo: Tashi Farmilo