Lack of consensus on dismantling Montreal homeless encampments: report
Posted January 20, 2025 10:33 am.
Last Updated January 20, 2025 5:40 pm.
There is a lack of consensus on whether the City of Montreal should continue to dismantle homeless tent encampments.
That’s according to a report by an ad hoc committee formed to study homelessness in the city.
Montreal has long maintained that encampments are not a safe or sustainable solution to homelessness, and that they sometimes need to be taken down for security reasons.
But the report released Monday suggests several committee members want the city to stop dismantling encampments and instead offer supports such as heated tents and sleeping bags, as well as food and sanitation services.
“Who wants to get displaced from the place you’re calling home? Albeit for a short period of time and albeit with all the dangers that come with it,” said James Hughes, President and CEO of the Old Brewery Mission.
The report notes that shelters are often full and that dismantling encampments can be harmful to people’s health and increase their vulnerability.
“What do we do if we actually displace them? We’re moving them away from each other often. There’s often a loss of personal effects like passports and photos and IDs, and other personal belongings as well. Sometimes you have a pet as well with you and that is also disturbing for that relationship,” Hughes added.

He was on the committee and says a new protocol with how the city deals with encampments was recommended.
“Right now, have an old set of regulatory tools to address people staying in the public space — loitering urination in the public spaces, sleeping in public spaces, those are just basically illegal, what the cities and the boroughs do is simply say, ‘Move on.'” Hughes said.
“What if we had a new regulatory framework that said under certain circumstances, because there’s no other place for you, you can stay, not forever, but you can stay and we’re going to bring resources to bear: toilets, psychosocial services, medical services, storage, so that we can start to take care of you where you are, make sure you’re safe, and start to work with you on a plan to get you into housing.”
“A lot of people are being evicted because they can’t afford their rent, and a lot of shelters are all full, so they have no other choice but to live in tents,” said Ronald Bray.

Bray is a volunteer and recent client of the Old Brewery Mission and avoided ending up on the street after being evicted because he found a spot in temporary housing. But he says he’s witnessed encampments being dismantled.
“People were living in tents, and every Thursday they would come clean up, and at night time they would go back, and they have no place to go, so that is their home,” he said.
“There is an urgent need to act quickly, considering the deterioration of living conditions for hundreds of people in Montreal who do not have access to accommodation/housing,” the report reads, which adds the situation involving at-capacity shelters has gotten worse in the last two years — since the 2022 visible homeless count.
The committee’s goal is to “establish possible solutions and a shared vision” to develop solutions to help Montreal’s most vulnerable while promoting a “structured and complementary approach for all stakeholders.”
Other key recommendations outlined in the report include increasing the number of spaces in emergency shelter spaces; accelerating the construction of new housing for people at risk of homelessness; and developing modular housing projects with the necessary supports.
“The highest population on the street are Indigenous people, so it is our people that are suffering,” said Nakuset, the executive director of the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal. “And you definitely need to have more warm spaces for them. If the metros don’t want them, you need to find another safe space.”
Nakuset says one of the reasons Indigenous people come from the north of the province to Montreal is because they assume there is going to be more housing.
“But there are so many obstacles and roadblocks in their way that they turn to other organizations and then they’re already filled and there’s nowhere for them to go,” she said.

In a news release, the City of Montreal says achieving those goals will only be possible with the involvement from the provincial and federal governments.
“This report is therefore intended as an initial tool to support the city in its own interventions and in its discussions with governments and the work of the regional consultation on homelessness in the coming months,” the release reads.
The committee is comprised of health and social service experts, as well as community organizations and business groups in Montreal.
The report will be submitted as part of the consultations conducted by the Office de consultation publique de Montréal (OCPM) on homelessness and vulnerable populations. Hearing sessions before the OCPM are scheduled to begin Feb. 17.
“The big question we have is: if and when the recommendations will be implemented,” Hughes said. “But it really is cause for hope that we now have a roadmap of what to do in regards to housing, temporary and emergency services, services right on the street, right in the encampments for people who are in desperate need of it.”
Here are the 15 recommendations included in the report:
- Conduct a regional review of the emergency shelter service offerings
- Diversify and increase the number of places in emergency and transitional shelter services
- Improve emergency services
- Increase and accelerate the construction of new housing
- Deepen and perpetuate rapid entry into housing programs
- Develop modular housing projects
- Preserve the existing affordable housing stock
- Improve community support teams in social housing
- Implement a shared housing program
- Intervene more intensively and in a coordinated manner for homeless people sleeping outside
- Implement a program and a multidisciplinary team to help homeless people sleeping outside
- Improve services for people in public spaces (health and food harm reduction services, storage services)
- Raise public awareness about homeless people sleeping outside
- Draft and make public a municipal homeless protocol
- Set up a central intersectoral body coordination of assistance