Montreal’s fight against homelessness intensifies as July 1 approaches

By Alexis Drapeau-Bordage, The Canadian Press

As many Quebecers prepare to move into new homes on Tuesday, thousands more could find themselves on the streets.

Every year, July 1st is a difficult day for organizations working in the homeless sector. Unable to find housing amid rising costs and fewer available units, “hundreds and hundreds of people have no option but to become homeless,” explained James Hughes, president and CEO of the Old Brewery Mission, in an interview with The Canadian Press.

Founded in 1889, the organization provides emergency services to people experiencing homelessness. For the past four years, it has also implemented a prevention program, called Passerelle, which aims to limit the impacts of July 1st.

With housing prices in Montreal increasing by 71 per cent since 2019, Hughes explains that the problem is reaching “volumes we’ve never seen before.” However, the increase in the problem appears to be slowing, he notes, “which perhaps suggests that [the organization’s] interventions are bearing some fruit.”

The Passerelle program is run in partnership with the Montreal Municipal Housing Office (OMHM) and helps “hundreds of people,” says Hughes. The program aims to identify in advance people who will have no other choice but to become homeless on July 1st, so that it can intervene to guide them toward a solution.

“We have had a lot of success,” he says, but if it fails, people are placed in hotels funded by the OMHM while the situation is resolved.

Within the program, the Old Brewery Mission team helps between 30 and 60 people each year, generally the most complex cases. “Our expertise in working with people experiencing homelessness gives us a certain expertise” that translates very well into prevention, explains Hughes.

The organization has three other prevention programs: one for seniors, one for inmates nearing release, and one for people at risk of losing their social housing. Hughes estimates the success rate for these programs at 50 per cent.

Fight upstream

If there is a homelessness crisis in the country, it is primarily because of the housing crisis, according to the president of the Mission. 

“We must solve the housing crisis to solve the homelessness crisis,” he insists. To do this, he suggests investing massively to build “thousands of new affordable housing units.”

The Old Brewery Mission has a portfolio of 500 housing units and also supports people in finding other housing options when they are more suitable.

Hughes notes that 80,000 affordable housing units were lost between 2010 and 2020 in Montreal due to renovations or other rent-inducing schemes. 

“The decline in the supply of this type of housing means that poor people have very few options, and this trend must be reversed.”

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews

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