What was feared was finally confirmed in the streets surrounding Maison Benoît Labre in Montreal. Incivility or altercations that, although quickly denounced by residents, were ignored for months by the authorities. They now feign astonishment, as if their own negligence was not, at least in part, responsible for these excesses that today threaten not only the mission of this help centre, but also the support offered to these vulnerable populations well beyond the Saint-Henri district and the metropolis.
The resources offered at Maison Benoît Labre—which includes 36 housing units for formerly homeless people, a day centre and two supervised drug injection and inhalation cubicles—are not only desirable, but essential in any large city like Montreal that is grappling with these exponentially glaring social issues. However, their introduction into the social fabric requires support, both inside and outside the walls. Which, it is clear in the case of Maison Benoît Labre, continues to be sorely lacking.
Incidents such as theft, yelling, defecation or sexual intercourse in public are all equally unacceptable. Such a climate of insecurity in the neighbourhood cannot be tolerated. In an attempt to clean it up, the mayor of the Sud-Ouest borough, Benoit Dorais, and the Minister of Social Services, Lionel Carmant, have agreed to try to relieve congestion at the respite centre. But the proposed solution is only a half-measure, with no additional funding.
A security guard will monitor the front of the building and another the back. However, nothing has been announced regarding the neighbouring streets, the children’s park or the nearby elementary school. A portion of the meals served daily at the day centre will also be distributed a kilometre away, at the Mission Bon Accueil. However, there is no guarantee that the beneficiaries will actually go there.
Not only is the response fragmentary, it is also much too late. Such a project – as important as it may be, let us remember – cannot simply be dropped into the heart of a neighbourhood without adding the necessary support from the outset to ensure its success. The hope of harmonious cohabitation is otherwise nothing more than wishful thinking.
Montreal and Quebec City are claiming unexpected traffic at the day centre that offers showers and meals. However, homelessness jumped by half in Montreal between 2018 and 2022 — well before the opening of this facility at Maison Benoît Labre. Calls to the Équipe mobile de médiation et d’intervention sociale (EMMIS) have more than doubled compared to last year. Is the influx caused by this crisis really unexpected?
The purpose of the help centre is fortunately not being questioned by the City or the Quebec government. However, its difficulties fuel opposition among others to beneficial approaches such as social integration and harm reduction.
The leader of the federal Conservative Party, Pierre Poilievre, went right up to Maison Benoît Labre to accuse it of being nothing more than a “shooting gallery.” And to promise, as with every other supervised consumption site in Canada, to close it down if he is elected. What matters to him, blinded by ideological stubbornness, is that scientific and empirical studies have demonstrated its benefits (more than 58,000 overdoses have been reversed there, with no deaths across Canada) or that the opioid crisis continues its carnage (more than 44,000 Canadians have died from it, at an average rate of 22 people per day).
In Ontario, Premier Doug Ford, also preferring intransigence to science, announced the closure of 10 of the province’s 17 centres located near schools or daycares, and specified that no new establishments would be authorized.
Two expert reports, written following the death of a passerby hit by a stray bullet on the outskirts of a supervised consumption centre in Toronto, had recommended that his government maintain these establishments, but also increase security and improve the resources offered on site.
Saint-Henri has fortunately not experienced such a tragedy. The climate of anxiety is no less untenable. Between the imperative to offer specialized resources to homeless or drug addicted people and the obligation to ensure the peace of mind of the residents they encounter, a better balance must be found. Otherwise, the backlash will only be ideological. And in its wake, lives will be abandoned to drift or will be lost.