“The day you take down my tent, you will kill me. »
Posted at 5:00 am.
This is the second winter that Alain Goyette has spent outside.
This year the sixty-year-old is better prepared. The tall, bearded man with sunken cheeks proudly shows us the generator he just bought. His neighbor in the camp also benefits if he helps pay for the gas.
Hidden in a snowy grove, at the intersection of Avenue Christophe-Colomb and Boulevard Crémazie in the Villeray district, the installation of Alain and his two unlucky companions “doesn’t bother anyone,” he says. It is worth it ..
The trio only has to take a few steps to hold their empty paper cups up to the windows of drivers standing at a red light. That's exactly why Mr. Goyette pitched his tent there. He lives in fear of being expelled at any moment.
PHOTO OLIVIER JEAN, THE PRESS
Alain Goyette asks drivers for money
Unpublished data compiled by La Presse in Montreal's 19 districts allows us to paint a first picture of the situation of the camps in the metropolis. Since the beginning of the year, the city has dismantled at least 460 homeless camps, including 420 in Ville-Marie. For this district alone there are four times more than in 2021. “The majority of these operations concern smaller camps, from one to five tents,” the district states in an email.
The same camp may have been mined more than once.
In addition, in 2023 there will be around twenty dismantlings on the Mont-Royal plateau and seven in Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. There were three of them in Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve and two in the Villeray–Saint-Michel–Parc extension; However, these districts say they do not conduct a systematic count. So it is partial data. The dozens of other dismantlings, if you add them up, took place almost everywhere on the rest of the island.
PHOTO OLIVIER JEAN, THE PRESS
Temporary camp in the heart of downtown Montreal
However, according to our compilation, more than thirty other camps were listed in Montreal without being dismantled by the authorities. This number is greatly underestimated because most districts do not report the number of camps, often hidden, set up on their territory if they are not dismantled. Those that do don't all have the same terminology or the same methodology.
Not just in the city center
Districts far from central districts are noticing the presence of homeless people for the first time.
In Rivière-des-Prairies–Pointe-aux-Trembles we speak of a “new phenomenon”. “Five interventions have been carried out in five different locations to help vulnerable people access appropriate social resources before reductions become necessary,” says a spokesperson.
In Saint-Léonard, two “lone” campers were reported in two different parks at the beginning of the year. In Lachine, we observed “isolated cases” installed on public lands that were “gradually addressed in collaboration with community organizations.” Saint-Laurent had the shelter installed on the site of a library dismantled.
In Ahuntsic-Cartierville, homeless people have set up tents in parks where there had never been one before. In early December, La Presse observed three tents in particular in Saint-Alphonse Park where at least two men were living.
When asked about the phenomenon, the Ahuntsic-Cartierville district, like several others, responded that it does not count the encampments. LaSalle, for example, also states that there are “no statistics” on the number of camps that exist on its territory, noting that these situations are handled by agents from the local police station. The Montreal City Police Service (SPVM) told La Presse that it also does not keep statistics on the issue.
Incomplete data
“How can we have a coordinated plan if we don’t have a big picture of the crisis? » asks the spokesman for the official opposition on the issue of homelessness in the city of Montreal, Benoit Langevin. The city moves forward “blindly, even amnesiac,” coming every year to winter and “discovering” that people are sleeping outside, he laments. The opposition proposes doubling the budget for homelessness from 6 to 12 million.
PHOTO OLIVIER JEAN, THE PRESS
Temporary camp in the heart of downtown Montreal
It is Quebec – through the Ministry of Health and Social Services and its CIUSSS – that has “the ability” to create a big picture, affirms the person in charge of social inclusion and homelessness to the City of Montreal committee, Josefina Blanco.
The Montreal CIUSSS contacted by La Presse had no further statistics to offer.
The city “does not systematically locate camps; “We will act according to the reports,” specifies Ms. Blanco, while she is “very aware of what is happening on the ground”.
In collaboration with the districts and community organizations, a “collective surveillance of the territory” will be carried out to “know the needs of the people and support them,” assures the local elected official.
In Montreal, “things are tense,” notes Sue-Ann MacDonald, a professor at the University of Montreal’s School of Social Work. In her opinion, there are “many inconsistencies” between the public discourse of the authorities and the way the crisis is being managed on the ground.
Repeated dismantling only weakens already vulnerable people by forcing them to settle elsewhere, in more distant, hidden places, and this will increase their distrust of the authorities, emphasizes the expert on issues related to homelessness.
“Incomprehensibly violent”
In the eyes of local authorities, “urban encampments are not a sustainable, safe solution worthy of our rich and united society.”
“We work with the health and social services network and local organizations to provide support to the people in the camps, to provide resources so that these people are safe, warm and ultimately have a roof over their heads,” explains Ms. Blanco. He described the cooperation with the Minister for Social Services, Lionel Carmant, and his teams as “very good”.
The city always seeks a humane approach to these people, giving them the opportunity to move and contact relief organizations during the intervention period, the elected official in charge of the homeless problem added to the executive committee.
There are beautiful speeches. People want to do something, we want to build housing, we want it to be accessible, but when it comes to respecting human rights and people's wishes, there are real shortcomings.
Sue-Ann MacDonald, professor at the School of Social Work at the University of Montreal
“People are losing property, things that are really important to them in their lives,” in addition to the community they have created, “it is incredibly violent,” Ms. MacDonald continues. “What’s the point of kicking people out if they’re already out? asks the professor from the University of Montreal. Please other neighborhood residents and vendors? »
“At some point this has to stop because these people are trapped in a vice, in a vicious circle and we are not meeting their basic needs,” adds her colleague Caroline Leblanc, candidate for a doctorate in community health at the University of Medicine and Health Sciences Sherbrooke.
“For all sorts of legitimate reasons,” many do not resort to emergency shelters, the researcher recalls. However, currently on the mainland we are “not even able to provide them with water or sanitation in the camps.” “There is a problem,” emphasizes Ms. Leblanc.
Alain Goyette would move into an HLM tomorrow morning if he were offered one.
PHOTO OLIVIER JEAN, THE PRESS
Alain Goyette
“My knees are exhausted. I’m waiting for an operation, but I can’t recover here,” he says, pointing towards his tent.
With “my small pension, I can’t pay $800 for one and a half.” If Mayor Valérie Plante ever wants to visit him to talk to him, she is welcome. “She comes from Rouyn and I from Val-d'Or. Everyone talks to each other there,” he says, before turning back to begging in the urban anonymity in the shadow of the Métropolitaine.