With Montreal facing a sharp rise in homelessness, shelters are struggling to meet the demand and keep people safe during the colder months.
Some shelters already at capacity have made chairs available for people to stay through the night when all the beds are taken.
They can rest their head on the table or warm up with a hot coffee, but there’s no privacy, and no place to stretch out to sleep.
“It’s better than freezing to death,” said Arianne Croteau, outside CAP St-Barnabé, a shelter in Montreal’s east end.
Croteau, who said they have been homeless for about a year, was able to secure a bed on Thursday.
But Croteau said they had recently been forced to spend several uncomfortable, mostly sleepless nights on a chair at another shelter.
‘Nowhere to go’
Like many shelters around the city, CAP St-Barnabé’s three locations are routinely filled to capacity. In November, Jennifer Fakhouri, a co-ordinator at the shelter, said they turned away a total of between 800 and 900 people.
Starting Dec. 1 and running through the winter, the shelter made 30 chairs available to accommodate people during the coldest months.
The chairs, rigid and plastic, are in the dining area where meals are served during the day. They are available from 5 p.m. to 7 a.m. for those who need a place to stay.
Fakhouri described the arrangement as a “last resort.”
“Already, the shelters are at capacity and these people have nowhere to go,” she said.
Fakhouri, who has worked with the organization for four years, said CAP St-Barnabé has done the same thing in years past to make sure no one has to be outside on the coldest nights.
But she said the pressure on shelters continues to grow.
An encampment on nearby Notre-Dame Street East was dismantled earlier this week. Fakhouri said some people are hesitant to spend the night in a chair, and would rather spend the night outside, or seek out another encampment.
“There’s definitely been an increase in homelessness,” said Fakhouri. She said the services available haven’t kept up with the growing needs, whether it be for mental health treatment, medical care or additional shelter space.
“It’s very scarce,” she said.
Shelters like CAP St-Barnabé rely on a mix of private donations and public funding, including the local health authority and the City of Montreal.
Homeless shelters have called on all levels of government for more help, and a clearer plan to address the underlying issues that lead to homelessness, starting with more affordable housing.
Montreal, like many other Canadian cities, has seen a dramatic rise in homelessness since the pandemic. Between 2018 and 2022, the latest government data available, the number of homeless people across the province doubled to roughly 10,000.
Quebec prepared to offer more help
After months of delay, the Quebec government announced late last week it had secured $50 million from the federal government to help with the growing problem. About half of that money will go to Montreal.
Quebec Social Services Minister Lionel Carmant told CBC News he would meet with Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante and local health authorities to determine how to use the new money.
“My priorities are increasing 24/7 shelter space and also improving housing [services] and [more] street workers,” he said Wednesday.
Plante said she wants the province to quickly approve a proposal for more beds for the winter and address the housing shortage, pointing out that 17,000 people are on the waitlist for social housing.
“Quebec must realize the extent of the crisis,” Plante said Wednesday at a meeting of the city’s executive committee.
The city confirmed it is going ahead with plans to build 60 modular housing units by next spring in two locations to help address the homelessness crisis.
One is in the borough of Ahuntsic-Cartierville and another at the site of the old Hippodrome in Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.
‘Sign of the times’
Those new modular units won’t be enough to overcome the extent of the challenges facing the city, said James Hughes, president and CEO of the Old Brewery Mission.
That some shelters have resorted to offering up chairs in lieu of beds is “a sign of the times,” he said.
The Old Brewery Mission has a café open 24 hours a day where people can warm up and sit down, Hughes said, but stressed it should be considered a “nice complement to emergency facilities where people get their own space.”
“We’re flailing about as a city to figure this out,” he said.
Fakhouri, for her part, said additional funding and resources — regardless of the source — are sorely needed.
“We definitely see challenges,” she said.
Quebec’s Transport Ministry issued eviction notices to the people who had been living in tents on part of Notre-Dame Street East in Montreal’s Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough in November. Community groups worry others living on that stretch of provincially owned land are next and advocates are calling for a moratorium on dismantling homeless encampments.
