This woman met near the Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve church, which she uses as a refuge, and laments that rents in the neighborhood have become prohibitive, ranging from $1,000 to $2,000 a month.
In addition, several people admitted to the shelter used drugs, says the young woman, which can lead to seizures. Instead of helping them and sending them to the psychiatric hospital, they are being sent out on the streets for lack of resources, she argues.
This woman, who desperately wants to find a roof over her head before the birth of her child, is one of the faces of a so-called humanitarian crisis in the metropolis. A seemingly catastrophic crisis in which community organizations are trying to somehow stay afloat.
The cry from the heart of a young homeless woman in Montreal. A few days ago, residents of the city center complained that they had a difficult time living with the homeless and drug addicts. Governments are investing record amounts, but finding places in emergency shelters is still difficult, especially as petitions have been made in some neighborhoods to move. This is the case when Mélina took refuge in Hochelaga. Reporting by Charlotte Dumoulin.
According to Annie Aubertin, executive director of Specter de rue, an organization based in Ville-Marie and a monitored injection site, one of the factors contributing to the aggravation of this crisis is the fact that the poor quality of the drugs circulating on the streets is evident declined. And because narcotics are traded with all sorts of substances, including fentanyl, and there are also incorrect dosages, the number of overdoses is increasing.
From one overdose a week or maybe two weeks, we’ve gone from averaging to about one a day this summer. Sometimes, twice, says Ms. Aubertin, before specifying that no drug user has ever lost his life on the organization’s premises due to the availability of naloxone.
“Our goal is for people to walk on their own two feet and alive,” she says in an interview for Radio Canada.
Annie Aubertin, executive director of Specter de rue
Photo: Radio Canada
His colleague Alicia Morales is categorical: there are five times more overdoses than in 2019.
Are people consuming more? According to Ms. Aubertin, more and more of them are visiting the Specter de rue offices because people who inject are becoming more aware that it is dangerous and that it is therefore beneficial to go to a supervised injection site.
Be that as it may, despite the organization’s best efforts, they are aware that tensions with the neighborhood could arise. Ms. Aubertin admits that it was still a bit difficult when the location opened five years ago. It’s only gotten better since then, but we remain vigilant.
I can’t manage alone
In fact, with the increase in traffic comes a financial trap: as part of recent subsidies, the job of street worker, a person who hit the neighborhood’s merchants in particular, has been eliminated for lack of funds.
According to Annie Aubertin, community organizations need more stable funding to ensure they can continue to deliver their core services. It’s ridiculous: With a budget of $2.3 million, the only core funding (the one that’s guaranteed, ed.) is $193,000. Everything else is [renouvelable] on a one-year or three-year basis, she says.
What is wrong with our institutions? adds Alicia Morales. Community organizations cannot do it alone.
And the criticism of living with the homeless and drug addicts that has been voiced more frequently in downtown Montreal and surrounding neighborhoods in recent years is symptomatic of change, believes Ms. Aubertin.
When it judges the complaints as disappointing, it mainly means that it speaks of a lack of knowledge, of the syndrome “not in my backyard”, it speaks of the gentrification of the district.
“People settle down after our organizations arrive and we would have to go back into the ground because they settled down. »
– A quote from Annie Aubertin, Managing Director of Specter de rue
Michelle Patenaude, Managing Director of CAP St-Barnabé
Photo: Radio Canada
This perception of a catastrophic situation is fully shared by Michelle Patenaude, executive director of CAP St-Barnabé, an anti-poverty organization in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.
As of 2020, his organization has provided temporary housing for 350 homeless people. Tensions have arisen over the years with residents of the neighborhood as the search for a new building to house these people on the street continues.
The housing crisis has also fueled the homelessness crisis, explains Ms. Patenaude, who speaks of a great struggle that unites the fight against poverty, access to affordable housing, the possibility of a healthy diet, the accessibility of grocery stores, etc. of drug addiction.
However, the head of CAP St-Barnabé does not go so far as to speak of intolerance in the community, but is content with communicatively addressing a question of support. There are also misunderstandings about what we do, she says.
Furthermore, for Ms. Patenaude, it is not only up to the community to find solutions, but to all levels of government. And most importantly, we need to focus on prevention programs, even if results may take time. A government that embarked on such a plan immediately after its election would likely have no concrete impact before the end of its mandate, the director-general concedes.
No action because it’s stigmatized
In the eyes of Jean-Sébastien Fallu, a professor at the School of Psychoeducation at the University of Montreal, the overdose crisis, which he describes as a public health crisis unprecedented in decades, is particularly due to the illegal aspect of the situation in question.
We are talking of almost 40,000 dead [de surdose] in Canada. Were it not for illicit drugs, resources would be mobilized and science and public health policy would be challenged, as was the case with COVID, he said in an interview with ICI RDI.
“We don’t do it because it’s stigmatized and for all sorts of other reasons. And that’s how people die. »
– A quote from Jean-Sébastien Fallu, Professor at the School of Psychoeducation at the University of Montreal
And this ban could be blamed for the arrival of substandard drugs on the Montreal market, the expert judges.
It’s documented: the more substances you ban, the more unknown, toxic, and risky substances appear, he says.
With information from Charlotte Dumoulin