(Quebec) Quebec and its CIUSSS on one side, the federal government on the other, underfunded community organizations torn on the ground, and the cities, stuck in the middle.
Bruno Marchand is fed up with the Kafkaesque way in which the homelessness crisis is managed. He wants to “break the system”, nothing less.
Big contract.
The mayor of Quebec has been on all the stands lately, with his strong demands for the next provincial budget (half a billion!), his icy welcome to the CAQ project of the “third link” and the future tramway that he must defend in turmoil.
But one subject particularly animates him: the fight against homelessness. He leads a new committee of mayors devoted to this issue, and he does not take his task lightly.
Marchand is fed up with the fatalistic discourse that emerges all the time when the time comes to consider concrete solutions to the roots of the problem.
Everyone’s work in silos, too (and above all).
“It’s not working right now, everyone works for their parish christie,” he told me during a long interview this week in Quebec.
From his office, we can see the Saint-Roch district, in the Lower Town, a traditional refuge for the itinerant populations of the capital. And Beauport on the horizon, a suburb which now also welcomes homeless people.
Homelessness is no longer concentrated in the central districts of Montreal and Quebec, recalls Bruno Marchand. The composition of the committee he leads is proof of this: there are the mayors of Roberval, Val-d’Or, Drummondville, Trois-Rivières, Saint-Colomban, Granby…
“These people don’t sit on the committee because they were asked,” he said. We didn’t even want that many people. Everyone raised their hands, because this is a problem that is now everywhere. »
Bruno Marchand, a social worker by training who won the town hall by a hair in 2021, deplores the enormous “confusion” which reigns in the management of the homelessness file.
A confusion like that of the health network, where acronyms (such as CIUSSS, for Integrated University Health and Social Services Center) are more numerous than the number of beds available in hospitals.
Do we agree that it was humans who created the confusion? It didn’t come from God!
Bruno Marchand, Mayor of Quebec
The 50-year-old sportsman denies being an idealist, but he sincerely believes that Quebec could – and should – aim for a “zero homelessness” objective. Adopt an “integrated” strategy to achieve it, rather than applying band-aids when the situation becomes too critical, as we saw during the last polar cold snap.
Examples of success exist elsewhere in the world. Marchand will lead a mission of four Quebec mayors to Helsinki, Finland, at the end of March, in the hope of better understanding the ingredients of the recipe, on the ground.
This small Nordic country has managed to reduce its homeless population to a trickle by making access to housing its top priority. The State invests tens of millions each year to build homes adapted to the most vulnerable, with a concerted vision, which starts at the top of the government apparatus and percolates down to the darkest alleys of Helsinki.
“We have to stop being afraid and get involved, slice Marchand. I’m always told, “It won’t work here, zero homelessness.” Me, I don’t care what you call it. What I want is for us to have a target, an objective that we will have to meet, and that we will give ourselves five, six or seven years to achieve. »
The neo-politician does not pretend to know the magic solution. But he is convinced that cities should be given more power – and money – by higher levels of government to be able to act as conductors of homelessness.
PHOTO CHARLES WILLIAM PELLETIER, ARCHIVES SPECIAL COLLABORATION
SPVM police deployed to the Berri-UQAM metro station in February 2023, where homelessness, drug addiction and mental health issues have been clashing loudly for months
A request also made repeatedly by the mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante, who lacks the resources to manage the current crisis in the Berri-UQAM sector.
I appreciate Bruno Marchand’s determination to shake the cage of the bureaucratic machine. He and his colleagues should return from Helsinki with concrete ideas, and we can hope that they will find an attentive ear in the Legault government.
The former leader of Centraide shows the same ardor in wanting to shake up the established order in his city in terms of housing.
His administration is in the process of revising the urban plan from top to bottom to allow the construction of secondary suites almost everywhere on the territory, for example in the garages of single-family homes. To facilitate the densification and the mix of uses, also, in order to add housing as quickly as possible in this prosperous city where the unemployment rate is at 2.4%.
Two hot issues will continue to monopolize the mayor’s attention in the coming months: the tramway and the “third link”.
The tram project, highly contested here, is not perfect, but it is already very advanced and will add enormously to the public transport offer in the capital, believes Marchand. It is already certain that its bill will be more than 3.9 billion.
The final price will be known over the next few months, which will have a decisive influence on what happens next. No way to dive if the bill is exorbitant, he suggests. “We believe in this project, but there is also an ability to pay citizens of Quebec, citizens of Quebec. »
As for the river tunnel promised by the Legault government between Quebec and Lévis, Bruno Marchand is still waiting to see the studies that would justify its necessity. Its sine qua non condition: that public transport be integrated.
You don’t get bored in Quebec these days.