Posted 1:54pm Updated 5:00am
At a time when Québec’s homelessness is on the rise, advocacy groups are concerned that citizens are “tribalizing” the phenomenon. Their conclusion is clear: the previous procedures for emergency shelters are no longer sufficient.
Meeting in person for the first time at a symposium Thursday and Friday at McGill University, members of the Quebec Collective for the Prevention of Homelessness (CQPI) wanted to lay the groundwork for this “new discussion.”
One of the collective’s co-founders, President of the Old Brewery Mission, James Hughes, testifies to the changes he has witnessed in recent years.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
James Hughes, President of the Old Brewery Mission and co-founder of the Quebec Collective for the Prevention of Homelessness
His facility, which has about 300 beds for homeless people, is usually full, like several other shelters of its kind in Montreal that operate with a 1% to 2% vacancy rate.
James Hughes is categorical: “It can’t go on like this. Like others, he is concerned that homelessness is becoming more common in public spaces.
“It Doesn’t Work”
“People used to see homeless people when they came downtown. But now it’s going back to their homes, to their neighborhoods,” he says. James Hughes names Ahuntsic, Montreal-North or Hochelaga-Maisonneuve as districts where homelessness is becoming increasingly visible.
Cities in the regions are also affected by the phenomenon, such as Gatineau, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Saint-Jérôme or Drummondville, as La Presse reported last December.
“Obviously it’s not working. [Et ce, alors] that the number of places in emergency shelters is increasing in Montreal,” confirms Eric Latimer, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University and co-founder of the CQPI.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
Eric Latimer, Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University and co-founder of the CQPI
“Obviously what we’re doing is creating homelessness rather than reducing it,” he decides coolly.
Additionally, as James Hughes notes, these people are “mortgaged” more than before as they struggle with substance use or mental health issues. At the Old Brewery Mission, first responders treat opioid overdose cases at least twice a week, which wasn’t the case five years ago, he says.
It’s not extraordinary anymore, it’s normalized. If this continues, we risk accepting the unacceptable.
James Hughes, President of the Old Brewery Mission
An opinion shared by Eric Latimer. “The danger is trivializing these things,” he says, citing the United States as a counterexample.
Possible solutions?
Local organizations and government must now focus on tackling the root causes of homelessness, not its effects, a very broad goal, James Hughes acknowledges.
To do this, the CQPI intends to draw inspiration from initiatives being undertaken internationally, such as in Wales and the UK, where public authorities have a legal obligation to find housing for people at risk of being in a situation of homelessness, such as in a explains a Cardiff University professor who crossed the ocean for the occasion.
“We are thinking in particular of a framework law [au Québec]. It could be to include the right to housing in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” James Hughes stresses the importance of this issue in the fight against homelessness.
Eric Latimer also commends the “Housing First” approach, which is to get people affected by homelessness quickly into stable, long-term shelter with support.
“There would be the potential to fund many more places there,” he says, pointing to the very high cost of the current approach while the university’s health and social center integrates the Centre-Sud-de-l’Île -en- Montréal pays $35,000 per year for each shelter place.
Eric Latimer also stresses the importance of supporting different categories of destitute people, who are often left alone when leaving the facilities where they are treated, including ex-prisoners or patients in psychiatric hospitals, before not ending up the street.
New numbers next fall
As a result of the work of thousands of volunteers, the results of a large census of homeless people conducted last October should provide a better picture of the population, but will not be released until the fall. The last exercise of this kind, the results of which were published in autumn 2019, made it possible to count 3,149 homeless people on the streets of Montreal. Even before the pandemic, the metropolis was seeing an 8-12% increase in the number of homeless people compared to the previous exercise in 2015, and that’s without counting people living in a so-called homeless situation.