The mayor of Montreal defended on Tuesday the policy of periodic dismantling of homeless camps in Montreal, pleading that people could not be allowed to sleep under the stars.
In a camp “there is a lot of crime, there is a risk of fire, there are attacks (as we experienced in Montreal), rapes as well,” said M.me Plante, in response to a question from the Leader of the Opposition. “Most of the homeless, what they are asking for is not to sleep in a tent, it is not to sleep in a shelter. […] It’s about having a roof over their head. »
“Perennial housing, that’s true dignity, that’s what a society like ours should accept,” she continued. “No sleeping in a tent, no sleeping on the street. »
The Press revealed Tuesday morning that Montreal has dismantled at least 460 homeless encampments since the start of 2023, including 420 in Ville-Marie. For this district alone, it is four times more than in 2021.
The same encampment may have been dismantled more than once.
There are also around twenty dismantlings in Le Plateau-Mont-Royal and seven in Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce in 2023. There were three in Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve and two in Villeray– Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension; but these districts specify that they do not carry out a systematic count. This is therefore partial data. The dozen other dismantlings, when counted, took place almost everywhere in the rest of the island.
With Gabrielle Duchaine and Caroline Touzin, The Press