Shelters all over the city: you’ll have to get used to it

There were two major announcements on the issue of homelessness on Friday in Montreal, which promise to change the daily lives of many people.

For the better, often. But perhaps also for the worse, in some cases.

The first, official announcement: Quebec and Ottawa will inject an additional $115 million within two years. These amounts will make it possible to create 521 new places in emergency shelters and transitional accommodation in the city. At least eight new centers will open their doors.

It is a concrete gesture, which deserves to be saluted. Hundreds of people will come off the streets thanks to this investment.

The second announcement, made implicitly, however risks causing flare-ups. The new resources for the homeless will be located throughout the metropolis, it has been suggested. Including in quieter areas, like Rosemont or Ahuntsic.

“It must be said: this means that organizations will be more and more present in different neighborhoods across the city,” said James Hugues, CEO of the Old Brewery Mission, who participated in the press conference.

Robert Beaudry, responsible for homelessness within the Plante administration, went in the same direction. The City wants to “involve” residents as much as possible, but they will have nothing to say on the final choice of sites. “It’s not a referendum,” he said.

Concerned or dissatisfied citizens will have to come to terms with the idea, in short.

There are already, at this very moment, 6,925 places intended for homeless populations in Montreal. They are located in emergency shelters, transitional accommodation and a multitude of residential buildings.

I was surprised by the magnitude of these numbers, I must say.

A lot of these resources blend into the background. There may even be one right around the corner from you, without you knowing it. Zero trouble, no crack use in public: just vulnerable people slowly taking advantage of having a roof over their heads.

But there are also cases where things go spectacularly wrong. Where the “cohabitation” promised by the authorities is anything but peaceful. Where the daily life of entire quadrilaterals was turned upside down overnight.

The most recent example is that of Maison Benoît Labre, in the Saint-Henri district. It is a social housing complex for homeless people, which also includes a day center and a supervised hard drug consumption site.

Since its opening last April, incidents – exhibitionism, fights, consumption in front of children – have numbered in the dozens.

The situation also degenerated around two shelters in Plateau Mont-Royal, to the point where requests for collective action were filed with the Superior Court.¹.

Stories like this make neighbors of future shelters fear the worst. There are many, many people worried, if my email inbox is anything to go by.

In recent days, residents of Ahuntsic-Cartierville, in the north of the island, were surprised to receive a letter from the City of Montreal informing them that an emergency shelter with 50 places would open its doors. in mid-August, not far from a CPE and a school of 1000 students.

The whole neighborhood is “in a state of shock”, wrote to me a reader who lives opposite the future resource. “Our main fear is that we will import the problems of other neighborhoods into our country. »

The same scenario is looming in the Rosemont district, where the former Sainte-Bibiane church, surrounded by schools and daycares, is set to become a shelter.

“I don’t know any parent in the neighborhood who isn’t afraid of what’s brewing here,” a neighbor wrote to me. With all the examples piling up, we are forced to believe that the cohabitation fairy tale that the district is trying to sell us will not happen. »

What to expect next, then?

The politicians I spoke to Friday at the press conference swear they have learned from recent missteps, like that of Maison Benoît Labre.

“From now on, we are going to take our time more, and work more with the communities,” Lionel Carmant, minister responsible for Social Services, told me. The message I heard was that it was done a bit on the sly, and we don’t want that. We want people to be well aware of what is happening. »

If the minister is true, those responsible for homelessness, whether they are at the City of Montreal or in community organizations, will have just a few weeks to put these good neighborly concepts into practice.

Because the new accommodations promised on Friday, thanks to all these millions of dollars of public money, will open their doors sooner rather than later. A hot summer is looming in many neighborhoods.

1. Read the column “Cohabitation with the homeless: on the way to the courts”