MONTREAL – A new wet shelter is expected to open its doors in downtown Montreal sometime next spring. Its exact location has not yet been decided.
Advocates for Montreal’s homeless population call the move a win, saying the city desperately needs a place where people can consume alcohol under supervision.
The new $3 million facility will be funded by the city and the province.
Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante applauded the move, acknowledging that there is a stigma surrounding the idea of wet shelters.
Nevertheless, she insisted people will slip through the cracks without a safe place to gather and potentially seek help.
Montreal has experimented with wet shelters before, including a pilot project last winter in the former Royal Victoria Hospital.
The emergency shelter was put in place after several organizations, including the Old Brewery Mission, voiced their concerns about severe overcrowding in their facilities.
There are also plans to open the Resilience Montreal wellness centre in November, near Cabot Square.
Outreach workers and shelter directors have called Resilience Montreal a direly-needed service after 14 people died in the area in the last year.
The sector was previously served by the Open Door shelter, which aided the neighbourhood’s predominantly First Nations homeless population.
If the wet shelter project is deemed successful, Montreal would be following in the footsteps of other cities in Canada, including Toronto and Ottawa, who already have similar facilities in place.
