The 10,000 homeless people recorded in the fall of 2022 embody in their plural singularities the severity of the “perfect storm” which will have escaped no one, not even Prime Minister François Legault. The awakening is no less brutal. It illustrates the mirage of shared skills in its most brutal crudeness.
In four years, the number of people experiencing homelessness has increased by 44%. The disease, until now essentially Montreal-based, has metastasized. The regionalization of street homelessness is one of the major elements of the report from the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec made public last week. In Outaouais, the phenomenon jumped by 268%, in the Laurentians, it increased by 109%.
The shock would have been less great if we had been more diligent in collecting data and monitoring the measures put in place to plug the gaps. Quebec announced that it would reconcile the counts. This was essential, but they also need to be refined. The pandemic, the housing crisis and inflation have cracked the foundations of our well-intentioned and oh so insufficient and poorly coordinated interventions.
Already, in 2021, the worsening of the problem had pushed the CAQ into the cables. Two years later, their interministerial action plan and its envelope of 280 million seem to be at the end of their useful life. The minister responsible for Social Services had to add 15.5 million for shelters on Thursday. Considering the needs, this amount is laughable.
The issue is sorely lacking in leadership. The absence of the Minister responsible for Housing at the Homelessness Summit is a snub. The evasive responses of François Legault, who sent his Minister of Finance the odious task of listing the additional interventions envisaged in his November budget, too. Municipalities are right to urgently call for an interministerial committee on homelessness.
This issue also suffers from the blockage of the federal envelope of 900 million reserved for housing which is being fought over by Quebec, Ottawa and the cities. No one doubts the need to tackle the housing crisis if we want to curb the trend in homelessness. This is THE priority. This ping pong game is irresponsible. Especially since Belgian figures show that it is less costly for the community to support a homeless person once they have found a home ($60,000 compared to $40,000 per year).
Let’s be fair: there have been concrete actions. But between Ottawa, Quebec, municipalities and community organizations, both consultation and planning continue to be lacking. Imagination too. We seem stuck in a handful of worn-out formulas while homelessness is more plural than ever. If it affects a higher number of indigenous people and unlucky people evicted from their homes, it no longer spares certain workers and certain retirees, as well as migrants.
There is no other option than to tackle the problem at the root, that is, through the roof. The example of Finland should be considered with great seriousness. Its “Housing First” policy has reduced the number of homeless people from 18,000 to 4,000. There, we don’t just give these people housing, we work to solve their problems mental health and addictions. However, the formula requires exemplary consultation and commitment.
The transition in Finland was facilitated by the conversion of existing centers into permanent housing. The towns also enjoy a comfortable base on the property. Here, the very high proportion of private owners, the lack of affordable social housing and the anemic low supply of rooming houses – that Montreal, we learn in The Pressacquired in dribs and drabs at exorbitant prices these days — are all obstacles to the implementation of a similar policy.
Monolith solutions no longer work. The time has come to diversify approaches and denounce the abuses fueled by the crisis. The duty reported Saturday that tenant support groups are seeing an explosion in the number of precarious housing units. We are talking here about rooms located in garages, underground parking lots, stairwells, kitchens or commercial premises, sometimes without water or electricity. It’s intolerable.
In the major project aimed at rethinking emergency aid, stabilization and care, we must be wary of extreme solutions. In New York, the forced hospitalization of homeless people suffering from psychiatric disorders has recently been permitted. Mayor Adams says it is a “moral obligation.” This short-sighted solution, however, seems to feed the beast more than appease it.
Let us not wait to be pushed to such extremes. Quebec requires a “homelessness pact”, according to the happy expression of the general director of the Old Brewery Mission. What is unfolding before our eyes flirts with a humanitarian crisis, but is not inevitable: we can still put an end to actions in isolation and serial abuses.