Montrealer experiencing homelessness preparing for eviction despite 10-day reprieve: ‘It’s a joke’

Devint says he hasn’t slept much since receiving an eviction notice.

The Montrealer experiencing homelessness was told to leave his encampment on Notre-Dame Street East – in Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve – by Thursday.

Following a 10-day reprieve granted Tuesday, those living at the camp now have until Dec. 1 before the eviction is carried out.

READ: Notre-Dame homeless encampment to be dismantled Thursday

“The eviction notice is to leave this spot,” Devint told CityNews. “If I go across the street, just right there, I already left the spot. I’m fine. That’s… I just moved the problem over there. Instead of being here. That’s how silly this eviction notice is.

“It’s a joke. It’s plainly a joke. It doesn’t solve our problem.”

Devint is convinced that complaints from people living nearby led to the Transport Quebec eviction.

“It’s them. Them calling. They calling. They complain,” he said. “They complain because they see a lot of stuff they don’t like. There’s no walls. Sure you’re gonna see all the things. Take your apartment, put it on the streets, and look what it looks like. It looks exactly the same as what we have right here.”

In a statement to CityNews, Transport Quebec says the eviction is necessary for the safety of the space, the citizens of the sector and for the users of the land. They add that social services are already on the ground and that police forces will supervise the operation.

“The citizens tell us or themselves they tell us and they persecute us with the fact that we are on the streets,” Devint said. “Go to work. Hey we all try. We don’t get it. Oh OK this percentage, we are lazy. Yes, but that’s a small amount of us.”

Devint adds that many of the people experiencing homelessness at the Notre-Dame encampment are unable to find work and that it’s very difficult to get an apartment. As sub-zero winter weather approaches, the Montrealer says he will find a way to stay warm while not having a roof over his head.

“I got a heater,” he said. “It’s a water heater. It’s good, it doesn’t start a fire at all. There’s a way to heat without flame.”

CityNews spoke to the Mobile Legal Clinic (MLC) which said when it heard about the eviction, it made no sense to tear it down without having a location for people to go to.

“Until the haltes chaleurs started functioning for the winter. They start Dec 1. The halte chaleur is not a shelter where unhoused people get a bed, it is a space with chairs where people can get out of the cold during the night,” said Helena Lamed, from the MLC.

Lamed notes the MLC contacted Quebec Transport and asked for a stay in the eviction until haltes chaleurs opened on Dec. 1, which led to the 10-day reprieve.

“The MLC was prepared to seek a provisional injunction to stay the eviction for ten days (the max time you can get), which would have worked out. We might well have won, which is probably why they agreed,” said Lamed.

Transport Quebec later responded to CityNews saying, “The Ministry has agreed to this postponement, in conjunction with the other parties concerned, in order to facilitate a more harmonious reorientation of the occupants of the sites concerned, under better conditions.”

They added “The new dismantling date will be presented shortly. A new corrective notice of dismantling will be distributed on site.”

The eviction of this homeless community comes as Montreal’s city council voted down a motion to declare a state of emergency on the city’s homeless situation.

Currently, 1,835 shelter spaces are available. That number will reach 2,102 by Dec. 1.

But Devint says he’ll continue to live outside, and he hopes more people will empathize with the reality homeless people face.

“Just come join us for a week,” he said. “Just sit with me for a week. And you got to talk to me about how now you understand. And you’re going to stop calling the city to evict us.”