Crack, nudity and assault with a stick | Benoît-Labre’s chaotic first months

The scene took place on June 7 in the early morning, in the Saint-Henri district, a few meters from the Maison Benoît-Labre (MBL).

A neighbor of this homeless shelter is waiting at a red light, just across the street, when a man suddenly appears at full speed. He rushes towards her, a cricket bat in his hand. “I had to run the red light because otherwise I would have died! I have never been charged in my life, I was shaking like a leaf!”

This Montrealer’s story is chilling, and it is far from the only one of its kind. More than forty incidents have been reported around the MBL since it opened on April 15, according to documents I obtained under the Act respecting access to documents held by public bodies and the protection of personal information.

In just a few months, this establishment has become a sort of “one-stop shop” for the most drunk in southwest Montreal. It has 36 social housing units for former homeless people, a day centre, and a supervised drug consumption site. As you can see, living with the neighbours is very rough.

What is particularly striking is the location chosen to open the MBL: a few metres from the Victor-Rousselot elementary school. The majority of incidents described by the Centre de services scolaire de Montréal (CSSDM), in the documents I consulted, involve children, parents or school employees.

A few, in quick succession:

• April 18: A parent is followed and yelled at by a drunk person, who then throws a rock at an ambulance.
• April 22: Two men and a woman, their sweaters raised, shout in the school park.
• April 23: A man with a stick shouts the word “pedophile” near the school.
• April 25: A naked man is seen by a parent at the entrance to the daycare.
• May 17: A man smokes crack near the daycare in the morning; a woman with a syringe is seen near the school park a few hours later.
• May 21: While a group of children are playing outside, a woman screams and pulls down her pants.
• May 24: still at playtime, we find an adult’s underwear filled with excrement, at the bottom of the children’s park.
• May 26: People relieve themselves in front of the school; others are seen having sex in the courtyard.
• June 2: a fire is lit in a container in the adjacent alley, which is also strewn with waste…

The list is long, and it is not exhaustive. The cricket bat attack, for example, does not appear in the official CSSDM compilation. This example comes instead from an email exchange between the management of the Victor-Rousselot school and the neighbor in question.

Why report all this? Not to scare people. Even less to further stigmatize the vulnerable people who frequent the MBL.

This review is strictly factual. It illustrates the very concrete consequences of opening such a resource in an unfavorable environment.

In this case: a stone’s throw from a school.

In the case of Maison Benoît-Labre, no one, neither at the City of Montreal, nor at the Sud-Ouest borough, nor at Public Health, was able – or willing – to act to prevent its installation next to Victor-Rousselot.¹.

MBL management claims that this was the only land available to build its center. This explanation must be taken as cash.

Victor-Rousselot’s parents, worried before the opening of the MBL, are now devastated by the turn of events. They continue to demand answers from all the competent (or incompetent) authorities in this matter. I understand them.

Chantal Gagnon, mother of two children at the school and member of the parents’ committee, is the one who made the request for access to information to the CSSDM. She is furious.

“I’m sad because most of the parents who can afford it are leaving,” she told me. “I’m sad and worried for all the children who are left behind, all the families who are forced to keep their children in this school.”

The issue of difficult cohabitation is increasingly moving onto the political stage. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre gave a fiery press conference next to the MBL on Friday morning, demanding that Justin Trudeau immediately close the supervised consumption centre. This outing fits perfectly into his fight against “crimes”¹.

The municipal administration of Valérie Plante is trying to disentangle itself from this hot potato. Earlier this week, it announced a consultation on cohabitation and the location of future resources for the homeless. Results unknown in the medium term.

The problems underlying this crisis – rising homelessness, increasingly dangerous drugs, housing shortages, growing frustrations among neighbors – won’t magically disappear. The next few months are going to be ugly in many ways.

1. Read “Drug use: Benoît-Labre centre must close immediately, says Poilievre”