At a time when the number of homeless people is increasing in Quebec, 16 addiction treatment centers have closed their doors in the last 10 years, removing more than 800 beds for vulnerable populations in the province, estimates the Coalition of Community Addiction Organizations.
Last week’s community summit on homelessness highlighted cities’ calls for the Quebec government to address this crisis. Addiction treatment centers must be taken into account among the solutions, argues Nicolas Bédard, spokesman for the coalition.
We don’t talk about treatment, we don’t talk about helping them get out of their misery. We’re talking about getting them a bed to sleep in and letting them return to the street the next day, or using it and returning to the street afterward.
Regarding supervised injection or inhalation centers, Mr. Bédard believes the closure of hundreds of beds in addiction treatment centers is having a direct impact on Quebec’s homelessness crisis.
Most of the people who call us and need help are on the streets, he explains.
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A woman searches in the Beaudry subway station in Montreal.
Photo: Radio-Canada / André Perron
Since 2013, 830 beds for social assistance recipients have been lost due to the closure of nursing homes, calculated Mr. Bédard, who is also the manager of a nursing home.
Yes, we need to find them housing, but before we find them housing, if they consume, they will not be able to pay the rent, and we come back to the point [de départ]. Real estate prices are also part of the problem.
Rents are so high that residents who have finished treatment can no longer afford housing, he says. So they return to the shelters and start using them again. It is a wheel that turns.
These days, addiction treatment centers are full, meaning a person in need of help must be on a waiting list for several weeks or even a month or two. Before the pandemic, people in need of help were cared for within a few hours, says the coalition spokesman.
The centers are currently at full capacity. [Cette situation dans un contexte de] If someone has an addiction, that’s really not a good thing, because if someone calls a center because they need help with their addiction, you need to help them immediately. There is a direct connection with the increase in overdoses, emphasizes Mr. Bédard.
“We are starting to sense that there are operational deficiencies across the network,” he continues.
These problems are caused by the poor financing of the centers, by the fact that the amounts granted to them are not indexed and by the increase in the salaries of the centers’ employees, which was introduced to make these jobs attractive compared to those in the centers to maintain the health network, explains Mr. Bédard.
If funding is not increased, it is expected that 50% of existing centers will close within the next 18 months.
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Mr. Bédard points out that the coalition has not met with the Minister of Social Services, Lionel Carmant, since 2021.
“During the pandemic, we have had almost monthly meetings with the dependency sector associations in Quebec,” he said, saying he hoped to meet the minister soon.
Mr. Bédard claims that it is not in Mr. Carmant’s plans to increase the funding granted to addiction treatment centers or to expand the pool of graduates who could come and work in the centers to make up for the labor shortage.
In 2021, we increased funding for dependent housing from $6 million to $10 million per year, a 66% increase in their funding, Minister Carmant’s press secretary Lambert Drainville responded in writing. During the summer, meetings were held with the COCD (Coalition of Community Addiction Organizations) and the APOD (Professional Association of Addiction Organizations) to discuss the current situation, in addition to various exchanges with the AQCID (Quebec Association of Dependence Intervention Centers).
A meeting between the minister and the associations is planned for the coming weeks, Mr Drainville also revealed, saying he had received the request for a meeting on September 19.
When it comes to expanding the pool of graduates, we pay attention not only to their requirements, but also to the regulatory requirements of HRH stakeholders [ressources d’hébergement en dépendance] They are intended to ensure the safety of the people housed and the quality of the services provided, he wrote.
After The Canadian Press contacted Mr. Carmant’s office, the coalition received an email from the minister’s office saying a meeting was scheduled for early October.