Closing of hot stops | Homelessness doesn’t stop on March 31

For more than 20 days, several heat stops have been closed in Montreal and in the rest of Quebec, because the funding that ensures their sustainability is allocated until March 31, each year. Yet the mercury is dropping below a level where the lives of people experiencing homelessness may be at risk, particularly those who do not have access to a shelter or who live in a public place, in empty buildings or in a vehicle, etc.

caroline leblanc
Doctoral candidate in community health, faculty of medicine and health sciences, University of Sherbrooke

A heat station is a place where people can find a source of heat without having to stay there all night. It is not a refuge, but a place open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (in the best of all worlds), where it is possible to rest and find support in case of need. The closure of heat stops is questionable, it is an important issue for people who live on the street. They are faced with living with instability and having to reorganize when there is a shortage of resources that come to their aid, without there being an alternative solution adapted to their needs.

In fact, the lack of places in refuge is not the only reason that pushes these people to live on the streets. Even if we multiply the beds, if the conditions are not suitable, that does not help their situation.

We have to face the facts: the current accommodation offer is not adapted to the whole of the itinerant population.

The many rules adopted to ensure better management of shelters are often exclusion measures for these people because of constraints, when they are not simply banned for non-compliance with the code of life. Some people are resistant to shelters because of the start times, the countdown to get a bed or early departures. Others refuse to go because they are afraid of being mugged, robbed or infected with bed bugs.

Consequently, an appropriate response must be offered to people who find themselves living on the streets. Heat stops are one of these responses. Their closure only weakens the support network of homeless people, to the point that we lose track of many of them.

The roaming emergency plan should no longer be thought of in terms of seasons. Homelessness does not end on March 31 each year. It is therefore the government’s responsibility to ensure the sustainability and stability of homelessness resources. The cold exposes these people to risks for their health and their lives.