A new 15-bed women’s shelter will open soon in Montreal, learned The duty. A measure that comes at a time when several shelters are under pressure, especially in the city center.
This refuge, which should be the subject of a public announcement in the coming days, will see the light of day in the north of the metropolis. It will include 15 beds intended only for homeless women, who are the ones who have the most difficulty this winter in finding a safe place to sleep after dark, said the To have to Monday Catherine Giroux, who is head of the regional homelessness service at the CIUSSS du Centre-Sud-de-l’Île-de-Montréal.
“We hope that this project will help the situation,” added M.me Giroux, whose team manages government funding for homelessness resources in the city.
Another 30-bed shelter for homeless aboriginals officially opened its doors without fanfare on Friday evening in premises located on the ground floor of a building on rue Sainte-Catherine Ouest, two minutes walk from foot from Cabot Square. The shelter is open from 8 p.m. to 7 a.m. and offers meals in addition to temporary accommodation.
“I went around my beneficiaries yesterday and I think they really appreciate the fact that it’s a quiet place,” rejoiced in an interview on Monday Alexandra Ambroise, who helped make this refuge a reality. It is managed by the Mamit Innuat group, which represents the Innu councils of the Minganie and Lower North Shore communities.
The city center under pressure
The number of places available for homeless people in shelters and heat shelters has also increased steadily over the past few winters, to reach 1,623 this cold season, according to the “Plan concerté montréalais en itinérance” unveiled last November. by the health network. However, several resources are still struggling to meet demand, in the middle of winter.
“It’s terrible to have to turn people away. We try to find other places for these people and we can’t. […] It’s really dramatic, ”says the general manager and founder of La rue des femmes, Léonie Couture.
In an open letter published in the daily The Press Monday, M.me Couture recalls that a count carried out in 2018 in the streets of the metropolis had made it possible to evaluate at 3,149 the number of people in a situation of visible homelessness in Montreal. She thus argued that more than 1,500 people are currently on the street, without the possibility of finding a place to sleep in the approximately 1,600 beds deployed this winter.
“What we say again and again is that 1,500 people, men and women, are on the street every day,” Léonie Couture once again insisted in an interview with the To have toMonday, pleading for an increase in the number of emergency beds for the homeless in Montreal.
Extremely high occupancy rates
In fact, the count carried out in 2018 took into account homeless people who slept outside the evening this exercise was carried out, but also those who were then housed in shelters, youth centers and resources for women victims of domestic violence, among others. It is thus rather 678 people who slept in the street, the evening of April 24, 2018, indicates the count.
“If there were 1,500 people on the street, we would see them on every street corner in Montreal, and this is not the case”, thus launched in an interview Monday the president and general manager of the Mission Bon Accueil, Samuel Watts. The latter, however, recognized that currently, “we have more entries than exits” in several shelters in Montreal, which must thus refuse people daily.
“We have seen people die on the streets in recent winters and we don’t want that to happen again,” warned the president and CEO of the Old Brewery Mission, James Hughes. According to him, the health network should set up additional emergency resources for the homeless, in addition to improving the initiatives put in place to help the homeless have access to permanent housing.
“What we hear is that there would be extremely high occupancy rates in several shelters,” admitted Catherine Giroux, of the CIUSSS du Centre-Sud-de-l’Île-de-France on Monday. -Montreal. The latter specifies that several shelters still have beds available on a daily basis, but that increased pressure is being felt downtown, where “a few organizations are overwhelmed”, due to high demand.
The health network also intends to rely on better referencing of homeless people so that those who come up against an overflowing shelter can easily be directed to another that still has beds available. Additional emergency beds could also be deployed if periods of extreme cold were to occur this winter, indicates the health network.