Details of a new Indigenous homeless shelter housed in a downtown hotel next to which will be a supervised drinking site were released midday on Friday, the day after the ‘worrying’ death of a woman without – shelter in the sixties, in the streets of the metropolis.
The death of this lady, found in a state of cardiorespiratory arrest on the night of Wednesday to Thursday near an entrance to the Berri-UQAM metro station, also mobilized attention from the start of the press conference. held Friday next to the Hôtel des arts, which will become a 24-hour emergency shelter for homeless Indigenous people starting Monday afternoon.
“It’s a death that is worrying,” acknowledged Ms. Plante. This death also occurs ten days after that of a 74-year-old man found in a state of hypothermia in a makeshift camp set up under an overpass in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce district.
She then recalled that the shelter which will open on Monday responds to a need that has been expressed many times by the community sector in recent years. At this location, 50 people will have access to a cozy bed, three meals a day, psychosocial services and a laundry room, among other things.
“It avoids putting people on the street when it’s cold in the morning. It is a much more humane model and it is a model that allows us to have access to these people all day long to support them towards longer-term resources” and thus contribute to their social reintegration, indicated Friday the Director General of the organization Projets Artisanat du Québec (PAQ), Heather Johnston, who is at the origin of this initiative. This structure will also make it possible to replace the emergency night shelter set up at the Guy-Favreau complex at the start of the pandemic.
Next to this hotel, a large heated white tent has been set up on a wooden terrace to serve as a site for supervised alcohol consumption. “We have several members of the community who live with severe alcohol addictions,” said Ms. Johnston, who also recalled that Aboriginal people are “overrepresented” among the homeless in Montreal.
Marijuana users will also be welcome at this facility. On the other hand, “we are not going to allow the injection of hard drugs. We are not equipped for that, we are not trained for that, ”she added, while recalling that supervised injection sites exist elsewhere in the city center.
“Here, no matter who you are, you have access to a roof, to services and even to a terrace to consume to avoid in some cases falling into a state of withdrawal which can aggravate the vulnerability of some people”, thus summary Mrs. Plante, about this first shelter for homeless Aboriginals accessible at all times in Montreal.
“We try to reduce the barriers as much as possible,” added Ms. Johnston.
Expiration date
However, the need for more high-threshold homelessness resources remains significant in Montreal.
“I will not hide from you that more is needed, of course”, agreed the mayor of Montreal, who ensures that she is working with the Government of Quebec and the health network “to find solutions” to homelessness needs in the metropolis. . The Minister responsible for Aboriginal Affairs, Ian Lafrenière, also spoke of the importance of relying more on resources that are open at all times instead of having shelters “which are closed during the day”.
“We should not die of the cold in 2022 in Quebec. This is why we must have several resources, several solutions,” added Mr. Lafrenière.
Neither the mayor nor the minister, however, could commit on Friday to making this shelter permanent which, like the other resources put in place as part of the city’s winter roaming plan, could close its doors on March 31. This resource, which will have opened its doors late due in particular to a zoning issue in Ville-Marie, could therefore cease to operate in just over two months, unless provincial funding is available.
“But we are going to make a plea for it to stay in place. The need is there, I think that our plea would be for this resource to continue,” assured Ms. Johnston, who then mentioned the idea of “sustaining” this resource. “The strategy itself must come from the Quebec government,” argued Ms. Plante.
“There is no planning,” said the spokesperson for Ensemble Montréal on homelessness, Benoit Langevin, who finds it unacceptable that we are talking about the possibility of closing this new shelter on March 31. . He thus deplored “the insecurity that the City brings to life” for organizations that help the homeless “by its lack of preparation”.
The announcement of this emergency resource comes about a week after the opening of an emergency shelter dedicated to homeless people with COVID-19 in a soccer center, with a capacity of 350 people, in the borough of Villeray–Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension. There are now up to 1,900 places dedicated to homeless people in Montreal, including heat stops, according to Montreal Public Health.
With The Canadian Press