The Village is, and always has been, an eclectic place where everyone finds their place. An environment of life, festivities, gatherings.
It also houses several resources offering services to an entire community present in the Village and its surroundings. Humans who occupy public space, who have no home, who use substances, who come from various socio-economic backgrounds.
Help resources, like these humans, were there before, during and after the pandemic. The Centre-Sud has always been a favorite place for marginalized people. In fact, the resources were created to meet the needs of the people who already occupied the territory.
To meet this demand, Specter de Rue, a well-established community organization in the neighborhood, opened its doors in 1986 and has been striving for more than 35 years to make the Village and Centre-Sud a more inclusive and safer neighborhood for everyone. We provide services to people who use substances. We create links with them in order to improve their living conditions, but also to demystify their realities for residents and merchants in the neighborhood.
In crisis
You are right, the Village is in crisis! We need to realize that the ‘normal’ has changed and that we need to adapt to the new realities we face. Are people in a situation of marginalization more present, or at least more visible than before? Maybe. Can we explain it? Certainly. For several years now, we have seen a meteoric rise in distress in all spheres of society.
However, the issues of occupation of public space and marginalization of communities are complex. Cohabitation requires watering down one’s side, on both sides, to ensure that everyone feels welcome and safe.
Homelessness is a reality that must be addressed in a systemic way and we believe that band-aid style solutions, such as more repression, will not solve anything. They will only move the problems of cohabitation elsewhere.
Like you, we work, live and live in the Village. We are watching the humanitarian crisis, the housing crisis, the overdose crisis. Like you, we are exhausted, angry, discouraged. However, we continue to maintain the services offered to the most marginalized people in our communities.
Needs and resources
Community resources are at their wit’s end and in flagrant lack of funding. Needs increase while resources decrease. Aid organizations have to fight for the funds to maintain existing projects and try to improve their service offer. The lack of consistency, due to these cuts, has consequences on the relationship created between the workers and the people who benefit from their support.
Considering that approaches, such as street work, which has proven itself for more than 60 years, are based on the creation of significant links to meet the real needs of the people encountered, consistency and coherence between services and workers are more than necessary to achieve goals that benefit everyone.
We must have collective reflections on the issues surrounding us. Cohabitation is a community issue. We call for creativity, patience and openness. To educate themselves and to take an interest in others and above all to trust the organizations working in the field.
We firmly believe that when people understand each other and manage to communicate, cohabitation is only facilitated.