The City of Gatineau will house around a hundred homeless people in containers this winter. The municipality, grappling with an explosion in homelessness, warns, however, that it is a “bandage on a hemorrhage”.
“All eyes are on Gatineau today, because cities are facing homelessness, but the solutions are complex. And containers are part of it,” Mayor Maude Marquis-Bissonnette argued Thursday during a special meeting of the municipal council.
Its administration confirmed the signing of a preliminary contract by which it undertakes to transfer a portion of the land on the Robert-Guertin site for 10 years to the Transition Québec organization. It is the latter which will operate the Transition Village, made up of 85 new containers transformed to house the homeless.
The municipality also adopted a municipal services agreement on Thursday which will allow the organization to manage the site in an “integrated” manner, with the City, for road, sewer and aqueduct issues.
This project has been in the air for a while now, with the City having announced its arrival a few weeks ago. Councilor Mario Aubé also deplored Thursday that elected officials were called to “vote when everything has already been announced”. “If we didn’t give the go today, our hands would be tied,” he said.
A little earlier, Tuesday, Quebec announced a contribution of 1.14 million for the years to come, in addition to an envelope of $560,000 for the current year, in order to cover operating costs. Gatineau will add an amount of approximately 1.5 million to “start and operate the project”.
Changes demanded
This will be the first initiative of its kind in Quebec and the first of this scale in the country. That said, “the cities of Quebec and Montreal are already planning similar projects,” recalled the mayor.
PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Maude Marquis-Bissonnette, the mayor of Gatineau
She also deplores having to proceed in this way. “The truth is that the City pays for it with property taxes, which pay for services to the property, so it makes no sense. There are no programs from other levels of government that finance the City’s actions regarding homelessness. And that will have to change,” argued M.me Marquis-Bissonnette.
In his eyes, the Transition Village must simply be “the start of something”. “It will take more structuring, broader solutions. Homelessness is a serious, growing problem that is costing us a lot of money,” she said.
Over the last four years, Gatineau says it has recorded a considerable increase of 268% in homelessness on its territory. “In Montreal and Quebec, it’s 36% and 33% for the same period. However, even if we have no skills, no responsibility, everyone turns to us and asks us to act,” the mayor continued.
She recalled having recently explored several options to make possible this “non-standard” project, which does not fit into any box of government programs”, including recourse to the Emergency Measures Act or even a ministerial exemption.