It took just over an hour for the garbage truck to swallow the entire makeshift camp under the gaze of its inhabitants. The latter had been developing for several months along the Henri-IV green network, in Rosemont.
Sitting at the entrance to his tent on his makeshift mattress, Richard Côté watches with a blank stare as the garbage truck approaches his camp, which he has occupied since last March.
The 66-year-old veteran found himself homeless three years ago after being evicted from the home he had lived in for around 30 years.
“I don’t know what to do, I don’t know where to go, it doesn’t make sense,” sighs Richard Côté. “How do you expect to get there when there are almost no apartments under $850 and you have $1,200 of well-being?” [social]. »
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS
The City of Montreal has proceeded to dismantle a camp in the Rosemont district
He watches in dismay as his neighbor’s installation is swallowed up by the garbage truck, while he lingers to fill a trash can he picked up nearby to put his personal belongings in.
“It’s certain that morale is more than diminished,” he says as a foreman from the City of Montreal approaches him while drinking his coffee. The latter then explains to him that he has come “to collect what goes in the garbage.”
“If you have a loose five, I’m available,” Richard exclaims. “With my hip starting to heal, I don’t want to force myself to lug everything here, I arrived here with nothing.”
Seeing the city workers bustling around his tent, he watches as best he can to make sure none of his belongings are taken away while the wooden pallets are shredded by the jaws of the garbage truck.
“Look, there’s a sweater that was there,” a foreman who had just found the piece of fabric on the ground said to him. For Richard Côté, that “will be one more rag.”
For the homeless man, the message to the various levels of government is clear.
“Before you make a decision, check all the angles where you could have made a mistake,” he says.
“I was beginning to feel at home”
A few meters further, Bertin Babineau points to a square of beaten earth where his tent was located a few minutes ago.
On October 22, it will be four years since Bertin Babineau began living on the street. He arrived along the promenade last fall to set up his “house” as he calls it.
The place where there are holes, I spent the winter there. I was starting to feel at home and because of certain events and certain people I was evicted.
Bertin Babineau
“Just seeing holes [je me dis que] “It was my house,” Bertin adds before a long, thoughtful silence. “We’ll think about other things and I’ll have a new house soon.”
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS
According to him, incidents occurred after the arrival of other campers, but the death of a young man in his twenties on the railway tracks several weeks ago precipitated the dismantling of the camp.
“I was with two of my friends, I had a beer with the young man, he told us he was going to take the train,” Bertin explains sadly. “We thought that’s what he meant.”
The 63-year-old does not yet know where he will spend the next night, but he assures that he will not go “far”.
“We won’t go to Longueil either,” he said.
At the time of writing, Canadian National had not responded to questions from The Press regarding the motive behind the request to dismantle this camp.