Homeless people who had set up their tents near Accueil Bonneau, in Old Montreal, received an eviction notice and will have to relocate, which has sadly become routine for them.
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“We spend a few months in one place, we get kicked out, we go elsewhere and it starts again,” Kamila Kudlackovla resigns herself.
The young woman from Toronto has been moving from one camp to another since her arrival in Montreal three years ago.
She pitched her tent on Mount Royal, then in Saint-Henri, under a bridge in the city center.
For two weeks, she has left her home a few meters from the tent of a man who claims to have spent the winter in this park on rue de la Commune.
Eviction notice
“We received our eviction notice. We have to leave here on Thursday,” says the latter, who did not want to identify himself.
Photo Anouk Lebel
Known to the workers at Accueil Bonneau, he was the last occupant of the land, where there were seven or eight tents over the last year.
Mme Kudlackovla came to join him, lacking a place to go.
“In the shelters, there is not room every evening. And I would have to store my things somewhere,” she says.
She assures that she will have left the premises by Thursday, but does not know where she will go.
Call for tolerance
The Montreal Support Network for Single and Homeless People denounces that this type of intervention has become routine in the metropolis.
“We call on the City to show tolerance. There is no alternative for the people who are being dismantled, who are being moved and who are being put at risk,” argues the director, Annie Savage.
She recalls that the phenomenon of homeless camps has grown since the start of the pandemic, in the city center, but also in the east, in Saint-Henri and even in the west of the city. island.
According to her, we must invest to offer more places in emergency accommodation 24/7, but also, and above all, in housing. “That’s all people are asking for, decent housing,” she said.