City looks to move St-Henri homeless day centre next to school

People living in Saint-Henri say they are cautiously optimistic after raising concerns for months about a day centre for homeless people next to an elementary school.

With school starting next week, the City of Montreal now wants the Maison Benoit Labre centre moved.

The centre has been open since April, and residents say they've lost a sense of security ever since.

"I think what's been most disturbing for families is the amount of exposure to sexual indecency, violence. We've had neighbours assaulted. We've had kids exposed to masturbation and sex acts on the sidewalk," said local resident Michael Mackenzie.

Mackenzie lives two blocks from the centre and is a McGill University pediatrics and social work professor.

"I think if you were to look at the histories of some of the folks who are struggling with addiction and mental health, some of the most common ingredients that they would have been exposed to early in childhood outside of their own families, were exposure to early substance use, early sexualization, and community discord. And those are the three things that the launch of the day site in the community next to the school has created for the children in in our neighbourhood," he said.

Southwest borough mayor Benoit Dorais said the situation has become unacceptable.

"Unfortunately there is a lot of incivility," he said, adding that he has asked Qubec's Social Services Minister Lionel Carmant to relocate the day centre.

"We had to do that," he said. "To ask Minister Carmant to move that part of the service delivered by Maison Benoit Labre."

Carmant's office says he is in favour of moving the day services but expects the city to propose several alternative sites to avoid a concentration of services.

Some nearby residents worry it's too little too late, with school starting next week.

"All our fears that we've presented back in October have come to life," said resident Julie Laurin. "And it's like people are just right now realizing, oh, well, absolutely. This is the reality that we're all facing and now they have to face the music."         

More than 30 people are living at the residence full-time. Those people will not be moved, and neither will the two safe drug-use cubicles inside the building – the city said only six to eight people use the safe consumption site every day.

The problem is what's happening outside, said Mackenzie.    

"I can't think of one incident that's involved a resident of the centre. The outside of the centre has become a magnet concentrating drug dealers… and, frankly, men in distress, to the neighbourhood."

The city said it is negotiating with the province and still has no timeline for the move.