For too many years winter emergency measures have been failing and nothing is improving. On the contrary, we are faced with a decrease in resources adapted to homelessness, such as those that meet the needs of people who do not use shelters such as hot stops. Heat stops are a place with a high tolerance threshold, where people can come and go as they please, a place where they can drink a coffee or warm up and refer to it when needed. We had to move mountains to have access to this type of resource 24/7 in Montreal and, with the throw of the dice, the decision makers are reducing them considerably, ignoring what crying needs it can meet. It’s worrying !
We are aware that we must stop thinking of resources according to the seasons. However, at this time, the resources offered will not be strong enough to meet the demand of homeless people this winter.
The CIUSS and the City of Montreal are of the opinion that 1,600 shelter beds are sufficient. However, we all know that the needs are not limited to a single bed and that the reality is that these beds are not accessible to the entire homeless population.
Shelters generate exclusions and many people cannot access them. Of the 1,600 places that are considered permanent, emergency beds are rare because the majority are intended for people in the process of integrating housing.
Although this type of support, which is called transitional, is necessary, the housing crisis makes the search long and tedious, and the criteria associated with rent subsidies (PSL) are so numerous and poorly adapted to the realities of people in homelessness that their stays in shelters last for several months, sometimes even more than a year. Therefore, a free bed is not necessarily an available place due to the many accessibility constraints that homeless people have to face.
In fact, current accommodation resources are not suitable for all homeless people, which leads many of them to live on the street. However, these people continue to be excluded by being criminalized or evicted from public spaces, and having their camps dismantled. This year, moreover, they will have to deal with a system that seems to leave them behind, by reducing the resources adapted to their reality, such as heat stops. Only a few places will manage to be offered in a precarious way due to the lack of recurring funding and the premises necessary for this type of resource.
The CIUSS as well as the City of Montreal have a large share of responsibility in the implementation of homelessness measures and, this year, their decisions concerning the winter emergency plan must be questioned. Inaction is an action in itself that puts the lives of people who are excluded from shelters or who do not use them for legitimate reasons at risk.
Deaths don’t just happen when it’s -40°C. It is crucial, as we speak, to act quickly to save lives.
When you delay like this, you not only increase the distress of these people, but also the risk of mortality.
We have a responsibility as a society to provide a decent life for all homeless people, including those who do not use shelters. To do this, the decision-makers must better support the community network, because it is breaking down, that they make more suitable resources available such as rest stops, summer and winter, and that they stop the dismantling, because people who live on the street also need stability like any other human being, and this, on a municipal, but also national scale.