Contrary to what many feared, no homeless person died of cold this winter in Quebec. Heat stops or overflow sites for shelters, last minute solutions had to be put in place everywhere to avoid the worst. For the first text in a series of three, The duty spent an evening at the Nocturnal Chimney, an emergency shelter in the national capital where a fragile social safety net is deployed, night after night, with the means at hand.
Fifteen minutes before the opening, a well-orchestrated choreography is repeated every evening. Hot water in the percolator, chairs for the socializing corner, overturned tables to separate the rest areas. At 10 p.m., the doors open: the first people enter the room, the tumult quickly swells in the small room.
The room fills up quickly, like the cups of coffee that everyone comes to get to warm up. Many rush to put down their bundles to reserve a place to sleep, on the floor. Their sleep will have to weave between the ambient hubbub, the constant comings and goings and the crises that explode without warning.
“Go away, crazy criss!” You harass me! Right from the start, one woman heaps insults on another. The proximity, in this cramped room, creates sparks likely to ignite this explosive microcosm at any time. A worker quickly kneels near the lady to calm her down. The evening has barely begun when the surrounding tranquility already seems as fragile as a soap bubble.
Drug addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes, former prisoners or simply destitute: here converge, in a room as big as a school class, the poorest of society. It is the unhappy men and women who stretch out their hands, during the day, in search of a little change or nicotine. It is those who are delirious at the corner of the streets among the fellows who accelerate the pace. These are people who come out of prison after having spent, sometimes, more time inside their cell than at home.
“Me, I went in there for murder,” explains Harley, seated under the harsh light of the area reserved for those who come to chat. “I spent 33 years there, and I got into organized crime inside, he underlines without restraint. It didn’t help my cause. »
On the chair next door, Michel devours a hot dog with relish. He too was involved in crime. ” THE Hello-Police, The Journal of Montreal, he explains. I had my picture in all the media! »
In the middle of the room, a woman recites aloud a speech addressed to no one, if not to the dreams that haunt her mind. It is about trials, crimes: the tirade will last, almost without interruption, for nearly two hours. Suddenly, a man stands up, his eyes bulging, visibly in crisis. The guard, Max, shoulders and smile broad as a wardrobe, calmly escorts him outside.
In the midst of this sometimes brutal chaos, a few gestures of tenderness. Josée, about fifty years old, her back bent by a thousand and one miseries and a proud grandmother, gently lays a blanket on a sick sleeper. She resumes her discussion with Marie-Soleil, in her forties, her gaze still bright despite 15 years of homelessness. “I want to give conferences to demystify what it is to be a woman in the street,” she explains enthusiastically. We are fighters, courageous, inspiring! »
“It was rough at the start”
This universe is balanced, night after night, on the shoulders of a team of workers who can be counted on the fingers of one hand. They were four during the passage of the Dutyalone to handle ten times as many people.
“We had recruitment issues,” explains Olivier Martin, director of family and community support programs at the YMCA Saint-Roch. A few weeks after the opening of the Nocturnal Chimney in December, two coordinators left the ship, including one assigned exclusively to the management of the emergency shelter.
“I find myself doing the job of all those people,” he says. In addition to his day job, he comes almost every night to make sure the evening gets off to a good start at the shelter. “We had a lot of turnover. It was rough, at first. »
Since the shelter opened, the bathroom door handles have had to be replaced three times. One of the two bathrooms was also condemned during the passage of the Duty : the users, sometimes under the influence of drugs, tried to tear off the furniture.
“We did not expect that,” concedes Mr. Martin. Last winter, the Quebec City emergency shelter, planted in a larger room, was a haven of tranquility compared to this year. “It was much more relaxed. We were in the sanitary rules, we had two meters distance and much more control. »
This winter, the room is smaller and the crowding, more disturbing, in a room where, in very cold weather, 65 people have already lived together. We must be careful with prostitution and the assaults that may occur. The police intervene almost every evening to handle volcanic situations at the request of the team members.
Low-quality drugs have boosted aggression for a year. “A pill costs 50 cents and it’s rubbish,” explains Alex, one of the four workers we met at La Cheminée. At 23, he is not even the youngest of the intervention team. “There are two others, says Alex, who are just 19 years old. »
“They are already on the ground”
There is also Daniel. A former prisoner who himself experienced homelessness before becoming a worker, he devotes at least four nights a week, sometimes six, to relieving the misery of others.
Posted at the entrance like a sentinel, he watches over the comings and goings. Each time he pushes open the door to welcome someone, it’s a bit in his heart that he also lets the person in, he who is empathetic to the point of taking everyone’s burden on his own shoulders.
“Several times a night I have to chase cars that are slowing down in front of the shelter door, window down, in search of sexual favours,” explains Daniel. He also intervenes when customers from neighboring Airbnb accommodations insult the homeless people gathered outside or when the customers or the staff of the restaurant opposite call them names.
“They are ‘suffering’, repeats Daniel, exasperated. They’re already down, can the world give them peace? He takes the cross hanging around his neck. “I wanted to crucify him a couple of times. Then I realized it wasn’t him to blame. It has nothing to do with it. It’s the manery that “fucked” him, the world. »