Tackling homelessness at the source by preventing at-risk tenants from ending up on street

A Montreal project is looking to support anyone at risk of homelessness before they end up on the street.

The “Porte-Clés” project – by the Old Brewery Mission and L’Office municipal d’habitation de Montréal (OMHM) – identifies low-income tenants at risk of eviction and in danger of ending up homeless.

“The work is mostly being able to identify these individuals as upstream as possible and at the same time re-root these individuals towards something like community housing,” said Georges Ohana, the director of prevention at the Old Brewery Mission.

“We know that these individuals, when they are evicted, more often than not find themselves homeless. So what can be done to be able either to preserve housing where they’re in, or on the contrary, try to find community housing, something other than the street.”

A housing shortage in Quebec and rising rents have led to a housing crisis in the province.

As part of “Porte-Clés,” a specialized prevention team steps in to mediate with vulnerable tenants. The primary goal is to improve the quality of life and safety of individuals. Where eviction is unavoidable, the Old Brewery Mission helps find a housing solution.

“The idea is to be able to ask a series of questions between three to five minutes, during which we would be able to understand their level of instability,” Ohana detailed. “And then from there, we can know whether or not what kind of moves, in terms of psychosocial, we can put in place.

“We want you to stay in your apartment. So the whole idea of mediation within the concept of Porte-Clés is being able to bridge the gap and making sure that everything is well understood.”

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The hope is to have the necessary conversations to grasp a full picture, by talking to members of the community, authorities, and those in vulnerable situations.

“Unfortunately, what we’re seeing is that there is a stronger link between eviction and homelessness, something that we would not think of five years ago,” Ohana said. “Because of the housing crisis, homelessness is becoming something more evident.”

The number of people living in situations of homelessness in Quebec increased by 44 per cent from 2018 to 2022, the latest provincial data show. A new homeless count will be held in 2024.

Rising rents could make things significantly worse.

“We are seeing through Porte-Clés that the same fight that we have in regards to eviction is also a fight to preserve individuals from homelessness, which is quite new,” Ohana said.

It’s the second partnership between the Old Brewery Mission and the OMHM. In 2021, they launched the Passerelle program to help those at imminent risk of homelessness.