A heated tent for homeless people, located in Square Cabot, in downtown Montreal, will be dismantled during the week. It had been installed following the death of Raphaël Napa André, a homeless Indigenous person whose death caused by the cold on January 17, 2021 had shocked Quebec.
The Raphaël André tent, where people experiencing homelessness could get a hot meal and a few hours sheltered from the cold outside, was inaugurated in February 2021 and was then presented as an ephemeral installation. However, when it was to close in December, its authorizations had been renewed until the end of March. The facility hosted many Aboriginal people who came to spend the night there.
“It is no longer possible to operate with piecemeal measures and we must get out of the summer-winter logic”, justified the To have to a public relations officer for the City of Montreal, Mélanie Dallaire, in a written statement. She cited the end of federal funding as the reason for the tent’s closure, which officially occurred on April 30. “The emergency resources that were deployed during the winter must be sustained, particularly with culturally adapted services for Indigenous people,” she added. It was not possible to reach the leaders of the Resilience Montreal organization, which contributed to the foundation and management of the infrastructure.
“We will miss the tent”
When passing the To have to On the scene, Sunday afternoon, the site was calm and no one responsible for the dismantling was there. Only a security guard watched over the already obviously closed place for good. Visible through the windows, the interior of the tent was entirely empty, and the structure was surrounded by barriers to prevent onlookers from entering.
Met there, Tamara Sparks claims to have spent more than 50 nights there. “We will miss the tent. Every night the line to get in got longer and longer,” she recalls. “It was well organized,” she continues. I never saw anyone fight there. »
Homeless people can be relocated to the Sainte-Jeanne-d’Arc Church, “which can accommodate 70 people since Saturday in a 24-7 formula,” said the City’s publicist at the To have to.