Chinatown residents launch petition against proposed homeless housing project

A group of residents and business owners in Montreal’s Chinatown have launched a petition opposing a proposed social housing project on Côté Street for people experiencing homelessness.

The new housing project is set to be spearheaded by Old Brewery Mission, Montreal’s largest homelessness organization, and plans to convert the historic S. Davis & Sons building into housing for people in vulnerable situations.

S. Davis & Sons was a former cigar factory designated a heritage property by the Quebec government in 2023. It is located between the iconic Chinatown noodle factory Wing Noodles and the Chinese Catholic Community Center.

Community groups say concerns over safety, heritage preservation and the local economy have grown sharply since the pandemic, citing what they call ongoing disturbances tied to the concentration of unhoused people in the area.

“We invite the Old Brewery Mission to take its project to go elsewhere,” said Fo Niemi, the executive director of the Centre for Research Action on Race Relations (CRARR). “If the Old Brewery Mission wants to declare a war on Chinatown, the people of Chinatown would fight back.”

Old Brewery Mission president and CEO James Hughes, says a portion of the units will also be reserved for members of the Chinatown community.

“It’ll be for people who are living permanently in their own apartment with a lease. The difference will be that our teams will be there to make sure they’re supported,” said Hughes. “We wouldn’t have brought emergency services or shelter services or safe injection services to a place like this.”

Adding, “We’re lovers, not fighters.”

Opponents of the project include residents, merchants and representatives of local community and religious organizations.

Tensions escalated further this week with news that Wing Noodles will close at the end of November, fuelling anxiety about the future of Chinatown’s cultural and commercial corridor.

Several community associations, including the Chinese Catholic Community Centre and the Montreal Chinatown Development Council, are backing the petition.

According to the petition, residents argue the neighbourhood is already facing an “oversaturation of services in the Chinatown area,” noting the district and the adjacent block “already host four services for unhoused and vulnerable persons.”

It also calls for the “protection of Chinatown’s cultural heritage and revitalization,” stressing that the area is “a historic district integral to downtown Montreal.”

“Cote Street is about cultural heritage, it’s about legacy, it’s about social development and development of a community,” said Niemi.

Lupine adds, “Old Brewery has demonstrated that it is unable to be a good citizen. We’ve been suffering under the community of undesirable people that has created”

The Old Brewery Mission says they haven’t bought the building yet and are unsure if they’ll be confirmed as the buyer.

They say that’s why consultation has been limited so far.

“They’re not wrong that we haven’t consulted as widely as we’d like to,” said Hughes.

The petition says the project was advanced “without proper consultations with local residents, merchants, property owners and cultural, social and religious organizations,” and raises concerns about “safety and quality of life for residents and merchants.”

Organizers aim to gather 700 signatures from residents, merchants and workers by mid-December.

“Chinatown, with its concentration of services in one area, is becoming a hub,” said Vincent Lupien, a property investor and landlord.

Bryant Chang, the vice president of the Chinese Association of Montreal, says, “There has to be public consultation with the residents, business owners, and stakeholders in Chinatown. Okay, you just can’t go ahead and do something like that.”

They say they will present the petition to the mayor, the newly elected city councillor for the area, and provincial officials. Legal options to halt the project are also being explored.

“We’re talking to all the instances of government at every level,” said Lupine. “The city has many vehicles that it can use. It can not fund the project. It can not give the certificate of occupation for the planned use of the project because of our complaints.”