Temporary emergency shelter in Verdun stirs mixed reactions among residents
Posted November 3, 2023 9:53 pm.
Last Updated November 3, 2023 11:24 pm.
As the weather gets colder, the City of Montreal has unveiled plans to open a temporary shelter in the Verdun borough.
The former Jardins Gordon seniors’ residence, situated at 1050 Gordon St., is set to transform into a shelter that will provide accommodations for approximately 50 individuals, starting in December, with the facility intended to remain operational until the summer of next year.
“I want to remind everyone that the Gordon building we bought it, the City of Montreal, to create affordable housing, that’s still a big need in Montreal but we didn’t want to have anyone sleeping in the cold,” said Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante.
Verdun Borough Mayor Marie-Andrée Mauger first made the announcement last month in a Facebook post. During an information session on Thursday, residents said they weren’t consulted about the project beforehand.
“I do have a heart, but I feel like the city blindsided us in the fact that nothing was said to us beforehand,” said one Montrealer.
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The shelter in Verdun is opening just as another one in Chinatown, Complexe Guy-Favreau, will be temporarily closing next month. Residents and business owners in that community have raised security concerns surrounding the shelter, citing a rise in crime.
“Yesterday, some lady said to me, Chinatown no problem, so this one no problem. Chinatown is a commercial department…that’s okay….but this is a residential area. This one is no good,” said one Montrealer who lives up the street from the soon-to-be emergency shelter.
The organization that managed the shelter in Chinatown will also run the facility in Verdun. However, Mauger clarified during Thursday’s information session that the shelter in Verdun is not a replacement for the one in Chinatown.
Plante says that shuttle buses will be available to transport individuals from other shelters to the one in Verdun.
“Some people that were at Guy-Favreau might take the shuttle to go to Gordon, but let’s not minimize that a lot of people, maybe in Verdun, were actually going to Guy-Favreau because it was a place where people from other boroughs would come.”
“Verdun is a very welcoming neighborhood,” said one Montrealer.
Another adds, “They need some place to stay…I think it’s a good use.”
