Despite the cold weather, the Superior Court considers that the City of Saint-Jérôme can continue to prohibit homeless people who sleep on the street from protecting themselves from bad weather in makeshift shelters. In fact, the court refused on Friday to grant a provisional interlocutory injunction to stop the evictions and dismantling of camps. The Traveling Legal Clinic pleaded for urgency in the hope of improving the quality of life of the homeless while awaiting the procedures on the merits, which will take place later.
“On the question of urgency, the court accepts the City’s arguments,” determined Judge Paul Mayer, after taking the case under advisement for a few hours. Since October 2022, the City has been evicting people experiencing homelessness and dismantling their camps. It is also since October 2022 that the City has been issuing tickets to those who have slept on the street. The court thus notes that the urgent situation that the plaintiff wants to stop has existed for a long time. In fact, for too long. »
The magistrate indicated on several occasions that he was touched by what he heard and by what he had read in the documents presented to him by the Traveling Legal Clinic, which presented in the form of sworn declarations the testimony of 14 people experiencing homelessness.
“It comes to get us, all the suffering [que subissent] these people, said Judge Mayer. In a society as rich as we are, not being able to adequately deal with this situation is quite disturbing. »
However, he believes that “the court must be careful at this stage of the proceedings”. In the room, the speakers from the humanitarian organization Le Book and a homeless person barely hid their disappointment. Some held back tears.
“There are three steps, this is only the first,” declared briefly the director of the Traveling Legal Clinic, Donald Tremblay, as he left the court room.
The lawyer of Saint-Jérôme, Me Daniel Goupil, for his part, indicated that the City would take a position “in due course”.
Principles of fundamental justice
The rest is therefore to come, since the parties will meet again on a date which has not yet been determined to argue the case on the merits. The Traveling Legal Clinic hopes to have the regulatory provisions of the City of Saint-Jérôme declared “unconstitutional and inoperative” which prevent homeless people from sleeping in the street and from erecting makeshift shelters to protect themselves from the cold and bad weather and which, thus, forcing them to isolate themselves further to hide from the police.
According to the Traveling Legal Clinic, these regulations “put the lives, liberty and security of these people at risk in a manner inconsistent with the principles of fundamental justice,” it wrote in the more than 50-page document filed Friday in the courtyard.
She maintains that sleeping outside is not the result of a choice, but of an absence of choice, and that there are not enough places to accommodate the approximately 40 to 50 homeless people who are thus forced to sleep under the stars or wander all night. She talks about the number of places, but also about access problems for a part of the vulnerable population.
“A band-aid on an unacceptable solution”
According to evidence filed Friday, there are only six emergency accommodation beds in Saint-Jérôme. The other 62 places, spread across two shelters, are limited to homeless people who engage in a social reintegration program. Their beneficiaries must therefore comply with certain rules, which several homeless people described in their testimonies as being “infantilizing”.
The City of Saint-Jérôme has also set up a heat stop, which can accommodate up to 50 people, but it is forbidden to sleep there, and the homeless who go there to seek a little respite must go out every two hours and stay outside for an hour before being able to return.
The municipality therefore affirms that there are enough places for everyone who wishes to be able to spend the night warm. An argument retained at this stage by Judge Mayer, although he considers that the heat stop “is only a band aid on an unacceptable situation” and does not constitute a long-term solution. “Given the resources and the plan put in place for winter measures for homelessness 2023-2024 during periods of extreme cold, the City’s objective is to ensure that no one is left behind outside, summed up the magistrate. God bless you, and I wish you good luck in meeting not only this goal, but this mission. »