Quebec cuts funding for Montreal police-civilian team that helps homeless population

The Quebec government is not renewing funding for a specially trained team of Montreal police officers and civilian community advisors working with the homeless population.

The Équipe de concertation et de rapprochement communautaire (ECCR) is assigned to engage with the city’s homeless.

“They provide an extra set of hands and extra set of eyes on these very vulnerable people,” said James Hughes, president and CEO of the Old Brewery Mission. “And have been really wonderful to keep track of them, make sure they’re OK, call 911 if necessary. And they provide additional support in these public spaces.

“So it’s a team that I think has proved its worth and we would really encourage the public authorities to ensure the program continues.”

The funding from Quebec’s Ministry of Public Security (MSP) for the ECCR team will end March 31.

“We’re very much hoping this decision is reversed,” Hughes said.

In 2021, the Public Security Ministry committed a $7.4-million grant to support the team for three years. It’s made up of 30 police officers, four sergeants, and one commander who all work with civilian staff – six community development advisors.

In a statement, the ministry told CityNews it isn’t renewing funding because “it is municipal administrations that make and are responsible for budgetary decisions to finance” their municipal police forces.

“The MSP can finance one-off initiatives, but this has a beginning and an end which is agreed with the municipalities as soon as this funding is granted.”

Hughes calls the situation worrying.

“This would create a real gap in the limited services that are already available,” he said. “We need more services, not less in these spaces. Again, this is not a time to pull back. It’s a time to really push forward and provide avenues or trajectories out of homelessness into housing from a safe and quiet community environment that is possible with the aid of officers and community workers such as these.”

Montreal police tell CityNews they salute the police and civilian employees working on this team, and their role and expertise will remain at the heart of the policing approach.

The SPVM says it will review the services that it can continue to deliver, but adds it comes at a time when there are hundreds of vacant positions in the police force that cannot be filled.

“Ultimately, the training that these folks are getting and why our view is that they’re an asset and not a liability is because they’ve learned about homelessness,” Hughes said.

“They’ve learned about the people who are journeying in and journeying out of homelessness. It’s the kind of training that includes how to reduce tension, how to reduce conflict, not how to just enforce rules.”