Homeless Shelters | Wave of cold, wave of concern

The next few days will be cold, very cold. As homeless shelters overflow in Montreal, responders fear a daunting challenge to keep everyone warm. And it’s not just in the metropolis that fears are being expressed: municipalities across the province are asking Quebec to better support them in the fight against homelessness.

“There are not enough places for everyone”

Homeless shelters are overflowing. This lack of places could prove to be dramatic when the Siberian cold wave hits the metropolis on Friday. Will the support measures be sufficient?

“The shuttle, good evening! »

Yolette Jean answers the call of the Welcome Hall Mission. Seven people who have no place to sleep must be transported to the former Complexe Guy-Favreau YMCA.

“We are going to the Maison L’Exode”, specifies the speaker, whom the regulars call Madame Shuttle, mom or aunt. “Afterwards, we will come. OK it’s noted. »

We are aboard the Old Brewery Mission shuttle which, from 4 p.m. to midnight, seven days a week, travels the streets of the city from one shelter to another to bring the homeless to where they are may be able to accommodate them for the night. This back and forth is necessary because the accommodation centers are overflowing.

Daniel Sabourin boarded the shuttle at Welcome Hall Mission with three other passengers.

“I arrived at 3 a.m. Then, there, it is 6 am and they say they have no more room, he says. You have to walk from one side and then the other all the time to be told that there is never room. It becomes flat. One thing I know is that there are not enough places for everyone. That is the problem. »

A quiet evening

Wednesday evening was probably a quiet evening aboard the shuttle, compared to what will await us when the Siberian cold snap hits the city. The weather will be relentless. At dawn on Friday morning, the mercury will reach -22°C, with a wind chill of -35. On the night of Friday to Saturday, it will plunge to -29°C, -41 with the cooling. Between Saturday and Sunday, the weather will be more lenient, if we dare say, at -21°C, with a temperature felt of -28.

Homelessness statistics, too, are relentless. There are 1,623 emergency places in Montreal, which includes beds, mattresses on the floor and chairs, and more than 3,100 homeless people, according to the 2018 count. The challenge is to ensure that no one spends the night outside with the risks that this represents for their health and their lives.

Everyone is doing their part: community organizations, the health network, the City of Montreal, the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM), the Société de transport de Montréal (STM), businesses… But will that be enough?

Not an easier year

The situation could seem less dramatic this year than the two previous years, when the COVID-19 pandemic complicated reception procedures. But this is not the case, because the number of people with precarious status has increased in the metropolis, in particular due to the influx of thousands of asylum seekers, and because the community world does not escape the labor shortage.

The City announced on Wednesday the opening of two temporary emergency shelters. A hundred additional places will be offered until Sunday, from 8 p.m. to 9 a.m., downtown and on the Plateau-Mont-Royal.

The Montreal Support Network for Single and Homeless People (RAPSIM) welcomes this announcement “positively”, but fears that it is insufficient. “It’s going to fill up very, very quickly,” believes the director of the organization, Annie Savage.

“The observation has been the same for years: there is a lack of hundreds of permanent 24/7 accommodation places in Montreal,” she says. We are really below the needs. »

Handjob fight

An emergency meeting was called on Tuesday by the CIUSSS du Centre-Sud-de-l’Île-de-Montréal, responsible for homelessness, with representatives of the City, the STM and the SPVM, the CIUSSS and community organizations.

The concern is palpable.

“Cold wave or not, there is already a shortage of places,” remarks Marie-Pier Therrien, director of communications for the Old Brewery Mission, an organization that offers 390 accommodation places, almost all of which are occupied by a regular clientele.

Émilie Fortier, director of emergency services at the Mission, notes that there are fewer places than in the past in “heat stops”, places where the homeless are allowed to spend the night in the warmth, on a chair.

“The heat shelters are overflowing everywhere,” she says. Emergency accommodation places as well. In a practical way, we will ensure that each place is used and that we do not lack staff at night to open all the services. It’s a challenge that we experience on a daily basis, the lack of personnel. Sometimes it affects evening and night services. »

Café Mission, managed by the organization, aims to welcome homeless people 24 hours a day, seven days a week, all year round. It plays this role of stopping heat. In the absence of a bed, it offers a roof to spend the night and a chair to sleep on. “If our capacity is reached, we will still let the person come in, have a coffee, and that person will leave afterwards,” explains Mila Alexova, service coordinator at the Mission.

Open the metro at night?

The RAPSIM would have liked the STM to open five metro entrances all night, across the territory, to allow the homeless to stay warm during the cold snap.

However, the STM is expressing strong reluctance and is only considering such a measure on an “exceptional basis”, because the metro is not equipped to serve as a refuge, in particular due to the absence of toilets.

“Special measures are necessary to ensure the safety and cleanliness of the premises and to promote a harmonious cohabitation of users”, underlines its spokesperson, Philippe Déry.

The STM could open a single entrance all night, “according to a concerted approach and at the request of the City or the CIUSSS du Centre-Sud”.

“At the present time, such a request has not been forwarded to us, but our teams will be ready to react if necessary,” adds Mr. Déry.

For its part, the SPVM has set up an “extreme cold plan”. The Anti-Terrorism and Emergency Measures Section “continually assesses the situation based on the information provided by its partners,” says Agent Anik de Repentigny, responsible for media relations. The SPVM’s extreme cold plan is implemented as soon as the mercury drops below -20°C for a period of eight hours or more.

Minister Lionel Carmant wants to be reassuring

“We are going to arrange for there to be warmth for everyone over the next few days”, assured Wednesday the Minister responsible for Social Services, Lionel Carmant, on the sidelines of a meeting of the CAQ caucus in parliament. . Mr. Carmant recalled that the problem of homelessness does not only affect Montreal. “Shelters have appeared in Victoriaville, Gatineau and other regions,” he said. To guarantee services to all, the Minister says he sent a message to the health network: “Perhaps it is not the time to give leave to people who are homeless, whom they often send to the shelters for example after their hospitalization. They were told to manage those resources better and to keep those people safe during that cold weather. »

Tommy Chouinard, The Press

Fight against homelessness: the cities send a cry from the heart to Quebec

Because homelessness is spreading throughout Quebec and the provincial government is not doing enough to fight and prevent it, mayors are stepping up to have their role recognized in this regard and to obtain more funds to take care of it.

The new committee of the Union des municipalités du Québec (UMQ) on homelessness, which met for the first time this week, will conduct a study to document the costs assumed by municipalities in relation to homelessness and will organize , in the fall of 2023, a municipal summit on this issue.

“We used to think that homelessness was a problem in big cities, but it has spread over the years. He moved to neighborhoods and municipalities where we did not see them before, ”underlines Bruno Marchand, mayor of Quebec, who chairs this committee.

As a sign of the times, the committee members include the mayors of Val-d’Or, Roberval, Saint-Colomban, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Granby and other small towns in Quebec.

All are faced with homelessness on their territory and must intervene to find help resources, even if this responsibility lies with the Government of Quebec.

Homeless at -30

“It’s primarily a human problem, but also a resource problem,” explains Mr. Marchand in an interview. “Municipalities don’t have the budget or the responsibility to deal with homelessness, but they do it out of humanism and because they believe they can play a role. »

The mayor of Quebec deplores the fact that this issue is “left undone” by the government of François Legault. The goal of the UMQ committee is to show the role played by municipalities in tackling the problem, before asking for more funding from the provincial government.

“We need to better define the role of municipalities, which are at the heart of the issue of homelessness, urban planning, community resources, but they need to be better supported, we need to work better together,” he said. . “Cities are obliged to invest sums to manage homelessness, to support community groups with their meager resources. There is something wrong. »

According to Bruno Marchand, solutions exist elsewhere in the world to effectively reduce homelessness, and Quebec must draw inspiration from them to get people in need off the streets.

“It must be part of our social project, we must refuse homelessness and do everything possible to support those who experience it, by supporting our community groups, he pleads. The resources must all come together to find solutions that put the homeless person at the center. You have to be ambitious. »