‘Why are they doing this to us?’: Sections of Notre-Dame Street homeless encampments dismantled

A Montreal man living in an encampment on Notre-Dame Street East is still feeling resilient, despite being displaced not once but twice in the same day.

Devint, who first lost his home after the COVID-19 pandemic, was among those living in the Notre-Dame encampments that were dismantled Monday morning.

“I’m a survivor. I’ve survived worse,” Devint said.

Montreal police officers – around 50 of them at one point – and Transport Quebec workers moved in early Monday to dismantle certain sections of the homeless encampments. A garbage truck and loader were also on site.

Near Bourbonnière Avenue, where Devint lived for the last few months, tractors cleared the encampment on the west side. The Montrealer was displaced to the other side of the street and was evicted a second time only a few hours later.

“I started on Pie-IX, then I moved up here,” Devint recounted. “After that I moved up there. And they moved me here, and they moved me there, and every time they told me I was going to be safe, that I’ll be alright there and take care of the people I take care of. Ha! Big joke. Look, they sent me back to where I was before.”

Devint, who grew up in the Hochelaga neighbourhood on Leclerc Street before losing his home, plans to rebuild Monday night in another location.

“They love making the poor guys feel as small as they can, because it makes them feel better for some reason,” he said. “I don’t know why, because they’re not. They’re still employees to the city, and the city’s employees to us. Why are they doing this to us? That’s a question.”

The areas affected were Morgan Park, between Joliette and Aylwin streets, and near Bourbonnière Avenue — all off Notre-Dame Street East. The province had cited fire hazards and unsanitary conditions as the reasons to dismantle the space.

Encampment occupants initially received an eviction notice for Nov. 21. But the Mobile Legal Clinic (MLC) — lawyers representing the homeless — intervened and asked Transport Quebec to delay the eviction until at least Dec. 1 when warming spaces open in Montreal.

Transport Quebec agreed to the new deadline. At 6:30 a.m. Monday, officials handed occupants a second eviction notice.

P.A. lived in Morgan Park with two other people for the past six months. He says they received an eviction notice six days ago. CityNews spoke with him after he’d finished moving his personal effects a few hundred feet onto the other side of the park fence.

“It wasn’t a big surprise, we’d been hearing about it for two months now,” P.A. said. “I am really tired right now because I’ve been awake for the past 48 hours moving my things – I moved all that almost by myself. So that’s why I’m exhausted.”

“You should have seen (how cold it was at) night when I was dragging all my stuff around trying to survive,” added Devint. “It was even more cold, my hands were freezing.”

A social intervention team from the city and social workers from CIUSSS de l’Est-de-l’Île-de-Montréal were on hand Monday morning.

Community groups have been asking that a moratorium on evictions be implemented in the city, as well as more support for the homeless community.

“We have come to a point that is completely absurd,” said community organizer Marine Gourit-Armengaud with Comité BAILS. “We don’t have any solution for these people to have a home and we have come to a point where these people are even being evicted from the outdoors.”

“We’re standing up today to be in solidarity with people because they don’t have any option and people don’t go see them to talk with them and see what they need, what they need,” added Léandre Plouffe with advocacy group Refus local. “It’s a question of principle and I would like to say that we face today a very, very violent situation that will be repeated in the future.”

The CIUSS Centre-Sud tells CityNews that 2,102 emergency shelter spaces have been operational since Dec. 1, which represents 396 additional spaces compared to last year.

The Refue local collective tells CityNews “there’s missing a lot, a lot of space,” based on the need.