Montreal invests $22.5M towards homeless efforts; Mayor Plante wants Quebec to appoint minister of homelessness

At a press conference Tuesday morning, the City of Montreal announced an investment of nearly $22.5 million for 42 projects spanning across 39 community organizations aimed at alleviating the homeless crisis — over a three-year period.

In addition, Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante said she wants Quebec to appoint a “top gun” for homelessness ahead of the upcoming cabinet reshuffle by the Legault government. Plante said she invites Premier François Legault to take action considering the magnitude of this crisis — which she says is raging across the province.

“There has to be like a very strong message that more needs to be done,” Plante said. “The message today is we need to add efforts when it comes to the crisis of homeless in Montreal but also it is across the entire province.”

The city says actions are being implemented “to create more inclusive, harmonious, and safe living environments for all” as their investment and financial logistics are scheduled to be reviewed Wednesday by their Executive Committee. Of the nearly $22.5 million investment, almost $700,000 will go to providing shuttles.

The transport projects involve several organizations including Projets Autochtones du Québec, which will maintain a community shuttle for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people in precarious situations; the Old Brewery Mission, which will establish a shuttle service for homeless people to emergency resources; and L’Amour en Action, which will ensure safe transportation in the North Island to facilitate access to emergency housing and related services.

“The funding for the shuttle services, these are really important services, not just for winter, but all year long. The Old Brewery and our partners have always focused on services during the whole 365 day calendar, and not just for winter. So it’s perfectly normal now to make announcements in August,” said Old Brewery Mission president and CEO James Hughes.

Currently, the minister responsible for social services, Lionel Carmant, is in charge of the homelessness issue. Plante clarified that her request “was not a disavowal” of Carmant.

“If we have a minister in charge, he can have the the power and legitimacy to also bring forward the other ministers in charge of housing, of health, of finance, and to say how about we find like stronger like rooted solution,” said Plante.

“The fact that the mayor is calling for homelessness to be a bigger priority within the cabinet table, which is I think her biggest message, is one we support,” added Hughes. “If we don’t have the support of the provincial government and potentially a minister with greater reach and greater powers, we will just continue to see the increases that we’ve seen over the last few years.”

Despite the large funding amount, Sam Watts of Welcome Hall Mission says that funds spread across will run thin pretty quickly, saying this announcement does really touch on what he thinks are long-term solutions at the government level.

“Homelessness is extremely complex, and to have it located very narrowly inside one ministry and that ministry having only responsibility for one tiny aspect of it, that can be challenging in terms of solving a complex social problem that’s going to take more than a year or two to resolve,” Watts explained.

Watts said one thing Plante didn’t mention in her announcement was that funds would go towards coordinated access, which he says is a critical foundation to resolving homelessness.

“It’s a system that allows us, as the major organizations, to register people as soon as they fall into homelessness, find what their need is and then immediately accompany them to the right resource at the right time, in the right place, so they can get back into housing as quickly as possible,” Watts said.

The city will also consider granting $450,000 to the Movement to End Homelessness in Montreal and the Montreal Network for Single and Homeless People “to help them continue to leverage their expertise and collaborate with municipal departments to implement concrete solutions.”

As the final stages of the modular housing units for the homeless are underway at the Hippodrome site in Côte-des-Neiges—NDG, the city says it has entered into occupancy agreements for the project with the Old Brewery Mission and RAP Jeunesse. It will also apply to the modular housing project at 100 Rue de Louvain Ouest in the Ahuntsic-Cartierville borough.

The organizations will be responsible for managing the housing units and deploying specialized psychosocial workers, who will provide support to the residents.

The city also announced it will once again make the Lucien-Saulnier Municipal Building available to the health and social services network for a warming drop-in centre next winter.

“Homelessness has intensified across Quebec and calls for concrete solutions,” said Plante in a press release.

Opposition presents solutions to housing crisis

Soraya Martinez Ferrada, leader of Ensemble Montréal and mayoral candidate, said at a press conference on Tuesday that she vows to do more to address the housing crisis, if elected in November.

Martinez Ferrada was in front of one of the approximately 80 vacant buildings owned by the City of Montreal — calling out the current Plante administration, as well as her opponent in the mayoral race, Luc Rabouin.

She said the administration has purchased “numerous buildings and lots that it then leaves abandoned.” as over 200 Montreal households still don’t have a place to stay since July 1.

Martinez Ferrada says she commits to a series of measures in the first 100 days of her mandate, if elected:

• Consolidate a single registry of all vacant buildings;
• Launch a broad call for projects to find a use for them among non-profit organizations and the private sector wishing to contribute to the effort to combat the housing crisis;
• Validate all projects already submitted and awaiting approval.

“I know the problems won’t disappear with a magic wand,” said Martinez Ferrada, in a press release. “But what I want to make sure I do is talk with all stakeholders so that together we can find a solution. Collaboration is essential.

As for additional projects, Plante said they vary from cohabitation efforts, to sanitizing and revitalizing public squares.

“It’s really what can we do together, and we’ve been doing great things with the government of Quebec in the past years,” Plante said.

“[But] let’s be honest, the crisis is not going lower, so there has to be stronger moves.”

–With files from La Presse Canadienne