Mayor Valérie Plante said no to comedian Mike Ward who offered 25 tiny houses to house the homeless in Montreal, but the proposal was accepted by the City of Victoriaville. Five of these shelters will be heading to Centre-du-Québec in the coming days.
On Saturday, Mike Ward had challenged Mayor Plante on social networks to offer the City of Montreal 25 wooden tents to allow homeless people to sleep warm. “These are wooden tents, insulated, heated with the heat of the human body. We can stay comfortably down to -30,” he wrote on his Facebook page. “Designed for the people most at risk, those who refuse to sleep in shelters. Tiny houses are built and paid for. Give the go and I can have them installed within a week. A simple yes from you and no one else will freeze to death this winter. »
The mayor, who declined the comedian’s proposal, explained Monday, on the sidelines of a press conference on Chinatown, that this offer did not represent an adequate solution given the context. “There is no one who likes it to say no. But what you have to understand is that right now, in Montreal, […] the problem isn’t so much space, it’s having qualified personnel, people who can support homeless people,” she said.
She said she understands that people want to help the homeless. “There is a feeling of helplessness in the face of homelessness and I understand. They are right to be angry that there are people on the street. I too am angry,” she said. “What is needed are lasting solutions. […] We need social housing and community resources to help these people who, not all of them, but often are very vulnerable. »
Its mayoress of Montreal refused Mr. Ward’s offer, the mayor of Victoriaville, Antoine tardif, for his part, showed interest and five of these tiny houses will be transported to his city. “We had a lunchtime meeting with various community organizations to clarify the nature of the needs and determine the management of these new equipment,” said Charles Verville, spokesman for the City of Victoriaville.
In the afternoon of Monday, Mike Ward launched an appeal on his Facebook page to obtain the public’s help in finding a semi-trailer truck and transporting these shelters to Victoriaville.
Since the beginning of January, while Quebec has been swept by several cold waves, two homeless people have died in the streets of the metropolis. Last Thursday, a woman was found in respiratory arrest near a entrance to the Berri-UQAM metro station. His death was pronounced shortly thereafter. Ten days earlier, the police had come to the aid of a 74-year-old homeless man who lived in a makeshift camp. Suffering possibly from hypothermia, he was taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead.