Montreal to expand EMMIS social intervention squad

Acting to address vulnerability, the City of Montreal will deploy the Équipe mobile de médiation et d’intervention sociale (EMMIS) – its social intervention squad – throughout the metropolis – with a rollout starting in January 2025.

Nineteen boroughs will eventually have access to EMMIS – a squad of front-line social workers that works in tandem with police, responding to non-urgent issues related to the sharing of public spaces. It could be conflicts or other issues Montrealers in difficult living situations may experience. This allows police, the city explained, to focus on criminal and urgent situations. EMMIS mainly works with social organizations by offering referrals and car escorts to shelters or other resources.

In 2025, the population and merchants will be able to take advantage of EMMIS by calling 211 – the Greater Montreal Reference Centre.

“EMMIS has become an essential component of the sense of security in Montreal neighbourhoods. The housing crisis, mental health issues, increasing homelessness, drug addiction and the cost of living are generating crying needs that must increasingly be met on the streets and in public spaces,” said Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante. “It’s a concrete response to the crisis of vulnerability, which requires collective solutions shared by all levels of government.”

The cost of the extending EMMIS to all boroughs, $50 million, being spent by city and Quebec’s Public Security Ministry.

EMMIS currently made up of 52 workers

The squad started in 2021 in the Ville-Marie borough as a pilot project – and in the Sud-Ouest. It was expanded to the Plateau-Mont-Royal and Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve last year.

The team currently has 52 workers and since this winter, EMMIS has also been working in the Montreal metro.

From 2023 to 2024, ÉMMIS increased its average number of calls per day from four to nine. They had more than 15,000 interventions in 2023 and 15 per cent of requests came from the public and businesses.

In the Montreal metro, 1,075 EMMIS interventions were carried out between February and June 2024.

EMMIS does not provide health care or assess a person’s mental health status.

The expansion of the EMMIS is also made possible by new agreements with the Société de développement social (SDS) and Équijustice.

‘Effectiveness of this project is questionable’

“In the midst of the homelessness crisis, the Plante administration will have taken two years to finally spend the provincial money to deploy the EMMIS squad throughout Montreal. In addition to the insane wait, the effectiveness of this project is questionable: even if the Société de développement social is entrusted with the mandate in three additional boroughs, there will be no additional workers,” said Benoit Langevin, Official Opposition Spokesperson on homelessness for Ensemble Montréal.

“We also deplore the absence of an agreement with an organization to provide EMMIS services in the boroughs of Montreal North, Saint-Leonard and Rivière-des-Prairies-Pointe-aux-Trembles, where cohabitation issues are on the rise.”

Discussions are also underway with a third organization to extend services to the northeastern part of the island of Montreal by 2025.