After being successfully tested in several boroughs of the city of Montreal, the Mobile Mediation and Social Intervention Team (ÉMMIS) will be deployed across the entire metropolitan area in 2025. It will support merchants and citizens in issues of cohabitation with vulnerable people.
“The answer cannot just be repression. We really need to focus on prevention,” said Valérie Plante, during a press briefing on Tuesday.
For her, faced with the increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness, the overdose crisis, and the multiplication of mental health issues, one of the keys to enabling better cohabitation with other citizens can be summed up in an acronym: ÉMMIS.
PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, THE PRESS
Valérie Plante, Mayor of Montreal
The Mobile Mediation and Social Intervention Team (ÉMMIS) was first tested in the Ville-Marie borough in 2021, before being extended to three others. It is made up of workers who patrol the streets, on foot or by car, and who intervene to defuse crisis situations in public spaces, in support of police officers and street workers. In 2023, more than 15,000 interventions were carried out in the four boroughs where ÉMMIS is currently present. Since the winter of 2024, it has also been working in the Montreal metro.
Given the success of the initiative, the mayor announced that the City would extend it to the entire metropolitan area, gradually, in 2025. The team, which currently has 52 workers, will increase its workforce to 90 people.
The population and merchants will also be able to contact 211 from 2025 to request intervention in a problematic situation, where they will then be redirected to ÉMMIS. In the event of an emergency, however, 911 remains the number to contact.
“The ÉMMIS can also allow us to collect information on the ground, document the situation and bring this data back to higher levels of government,” explains the mayor.
Mayor Valérie Plante also insisted on the fact that ÉMMIS was only one solution among many to try to improve cohabitation between vulnerable people and other citizens.
“Do we need to do more? Yes! And what do we need? Housing!” she said.
This expansion of the ÉMMIS service offering is made possible thanks to new agreements established with several organizations, such as the Société de développement social (SDS) and Équijustice. “It’s not a magic wand, but it can really make a difference by reducing tensions in the public space,” believes Vincent Morel, director of ÉMMIS for the SDS.
This deployment of the ÉMMIS results from funding of 50 million, coming equally from the City of Montreal and the Ministry of Public Security of the Government of Quebec, until 2028.