A year later, here are the elders of the Notre-Dame camp where homeless people lived in Hochelaga

The dismantling of the camp on rue Notre-Dame in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve on the 7th December 2020 marked the spirits: he had become the symbol of an unprecedented housing crisis. Several campers had settled on land owned by the Ministry of Transportation and formed a small community, which was forcibly dispersed after a fire broke out in a tent. A year later, where are they at?

• Read also: A camp has just been dismantled in Sherbrooke

Alexandre Poulin, 21 years old

Last summer, Alexandre Poulin found a quiet area in a wooded area in the metropolis where he built a cabin in which he plans to spend the winter. Sheet metal pallets, plywood, propane tanks, blankets and clothing were used to set up a temporary nest.

“I could go to shelters, but I don’t go by choice because I don’t get along very well with everyone and there are a lot of mental health issues,” he explains.

The young man still admits to having some fears about his safety. Strangers venture near his cabin sometimes, and arsonists have set a site on fire nearby. “I keep a fire extinguisher close to me,” he hisses.

He misses the “little camping civilization”, which filled the loneliness and allowed good access to food. This small civilization also helped save some people who overdosed, he explains.

Alexandre Poulin started living on the streets after leaving youth centers at the age of 18. Lately, he has reduced his drug use and would like to find accommodation, but like many other ex-campers, he faces an immutable obstacle: “too expensive”.

• Read also: Here is why we denounce more and more real estate flips

Jacques Brochu, 61 years old

When he lived in the Notre-Dame camp, Jacques Brochu was clear: he did not want to leave the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district, and he would leave the camp only if he found “real accommodation”.

During the dismantling, he was offered a room by an organization, which includes a small fridge and a stove, while waiting to integrate the program for social housing. A year later, he still lives there.

“Homelessness is covered up. There is no political will. Take the bull by the horns and stop feeding the industry with poverty, ”he sends as a message to decision-makers who, according to him, have every interest in not investing public funds in social housing to avoid spending.

After a burnout and a renovation, Jacques became homeless in February 2020. He slept a few months at the hotel before being in June one of the first to pitch his tent on the land that was to become the camp.

• Read also: Increase in homelessness in the regions: winter promises to be difficult

“There were chemical toilets close by and the Red Cross gave meals in the Dézéry square. […] I felt very safe at the campsite, ”he explains.

Jacques was the artist of the camp. “I was very exuberant. I had my table to show the symbolism linked to homelessness, ”he recalls.

Listen to the summary of Camille Dauphinais, Head of political content and society at 24H, on QUB radio:

Guylain Levasseur, 56 years old

Guylain Levasseur lives in his truck for six winters, and claims to know almost everyone in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. He lives well in his van, but worries about others.

The former DJ, who had been presented several times in the media as the spokesperson for the camp, took us on a truck ride to show us how “the old campers” are now scattered around the neighborhood.

The ex-camper honks homeless people and offers them snacks. He obviously knows the locals well. “Him, he’s in front of the pharmacy at 7am all the time,” he said, pointing to a man sitting on the sidewalk.

“They didn’t solve the problem by dismantling the camp. We pick up corpses everywhere, ”he protests when asked what the dismantling has created.

He cites the example of a man nicknamed Snoopy who was found dead in a bush last summer. According to him, at the camp, he would not have died under such conditions.

“I miss the gang. There was a gang of Inuit who were super cool. They are all on the Plateau Mont-Royal now, ”he says nostalgically.

Guylain Levasseur is working on a Charter of the rights of homeless people that he wishes to present to the City eventually.

Chantale Gladu, 54 years old

With her boyfriend, Chantale Gladu currently lives alternately between an abandoned apartment and an abandoned factory. This winter, the 50-year-old will stay in her father’s apartment.

“Housing is made too expensive for the low-income world. That they make HLM instead of osti of condos! Even rat holes have become expensive, ”she says, deeply deploring the gentrification of the Hochelaga district, in which she was born and has lived all her life.

She knows something about it: after the camp was dismantled, she lived in a rooming house, where she was charged rent … to sleep in a closet. “I was charged $ 140 to sleep in a wardrobe and I slept with a tank with hot water as a bonus, ”she laments.

To have her own room, she should have spent at least $ 600, with “mice, cockroaches, doors that don’t lock and thieves,” she says.

The woman, suffering from generalized cancer and who can no longer work for health reasons, spent three months in this establishment last summer, before returning to the streets, being unable to find accommodation corresponding to her income .

She has fond memories of the camp.

“It’s silly what I’m going to tell you, but I’m a consumer [de crack] and I hardly ate. When I got there, I ate a lot less and ate like a slut. I ate and got fat […]. I was called the camp mascot. We weren’t bored with me, ”she remembers emotionally.

Daniel Clermont, 61 years old

Since the dismantling of the camp, Daniel Clermont has escaped from the streets, where he had lived for 20 years, in part because of his heroin use, which he has since managed to stop.

He wanted to have a home and move on, and it was at the camp that he met someone who helped him register for the Projet Logement Montréal (PLM) program. , which aims to stabilize people experiencing homelessness.

Mission accomplished: he now lives in an apartment near the Jean-Talon metro station and works as a washing manager at the CAP St-Barnabé organization. “I work 6 to 7 hours a day,” he says, which brings him enough income to pay his rent.

Daniel had left the camp a month before the dismantling, and had even left his tent on the site.

In his memories, he didn’t want to spend his days in camp and preferred to come only to sleep there at night – he found the camp pleasant to do his things on his own and mind his own business. He was there in order to eventually have his accommodation and not have to move his things all the time.

“I didn’t speak to many people. It was the thing to have peace. [Les gens] didn’t bother me, ”he explains.

Louis Rouillard, 61 years old

Louis Rouillard is a sociable man: he misses the “feeling of belonging” brought to him by the Notre-Dame camp, but he has managed to find another elsewhere.

In exchange for a helping hand to the volunteers, he can spend the night in an organization’s warehouse and eat a little there.

He wants at all costs to avoid taking pity on him: he is doing well and is busy doing “parties” with the volunteers of the organization, he tells us. It gives him “contacts”, and he meets people who are different from those who live in the streets.

At the Notre-Dame camp, the former heavy iron worker was the “manual” guy and helped out when needed. He liked that everything was in the same place.

“You know, when you’re in the street, you sleep in the porticoes and get kicked out. If I went to the camp, it was because I didn’t have to carry my three bags to go see my social worker, ”adds the one who has insomnia due to his anxiety. At the camp, he did not have to run after resources (food, toilets), located in the same place.

Louis knew, however, that, despite the joys that camp could bring him, the fun would eventually end in an eviction due to the drug problems there and the fire.

However, he is a proponent of tolerating encampments by supervising them, and even volunteers to “show how”.

SEE ALSO

He’ll spend the winter giving help