In Montreal, journalist Louis-Philippe Messier is mostly on the run, with his desk in his backpack, looking for fascinating topics and people. In this city chronicle he speaks to everyone and is interested in all areas of life.
Disgruntled residents of a downtown building who have been victims of harassment, vandalism and break-ins by hard drug users equipped themselves with a surveillance camera system to document their ordeal, hoping the images will finally persuade policymakers to help them .
I dedicated a column last October to this deplorable situation on Berger Street, also known as “Crack Alley.” Nothing has changed since then. For residents of the low-cost apartment building A Roof in the City, the inconvenience is a constant.
Across the street, the Cactus organization carries out its humanitarian mission, ensuring that drug users can inject safely and are provided with clean consumption equipment. Things get difficult outside its walls.
“Garbage everywhere, dirty syringes, screams in the middle of the night, fights, screaming matches, constantly flashing lights, crowds of crack smokers blocking entrances and exits, break-ins to sell or consume in the basement are the daily reality “Our residents 365 days in year,” laments Guy Robert, president of the organization’s board.
“Cactus workers have shifts and vacation. But for our residents trapped in the situation, there is never any respite. It’s the torture of gout.”
Document attacks
Two weeks ago, Un Roof en Ville installed a comprehensive security camera system covering doors, entrances, stairs, hallways, etc.
“One of our residents was hit in the back with an iron bar last fall and one of my 74-year-old neighbors was pushed and thrown to the ground by someone who forced his way in, so the police said if we want to be able to identify the criminals “It would be helpful to have pictures,” said Hortense, a resident who has had problems herself with crack smokers refusing to leave her entrance last Saturday, Feb. 10.
“I ended up losing patience because they asked me to use a different door, where of course there were people who didn’t want to move.”
“We talk about what we endure and it's like people don't believe us. People have the nerve to say that we suffer from “not in my backyard” syndrome, but it doesn't happen in our backyard, it's in our faces, it's in our driveways, in our hallways and it “Keeps us awake at night,” says the older woman, who teams up with a neighbor to take her garbage to the basement so that she doesn’t have to go there alone.
On the night of February 21-22, shortly after my visit, a man entered the building. “Photo A roof in the city”
In the basement, broken balls testify to the habit of tearing them off and then taking out the light bulbs and plunging the hallway into darkness… to smoke and sleep in peace.
“Often the person who manages to get in lets their whole gang in. And there are about ten downstairs. You must call 911. The other day there was a huge droppings on the fire escape and the whole building stank.”
The night after my visit to Hortense, the metal frame of the front door was bent.
The astragalus on the front door is twisted… “Photo A roof in the city”
An intruder has walked through the corridors.
A burglar walks through the stairwell at night. “Photo A roof in the city”
As for the front portico, that's no surprise: there was a crowd of crack smokers there. Unfortunately, the organization “Un Toit en Ville” runs the risk of quickly “recouping” the $15,000 invested in its surveillance system.