Councillor wants state of emergency on Montreal homeless crisis

Independent Montreal city councillor Craig Sauve is calling on the city to declare a state of emergency to deal with the homeless population this winter.

Sauve said that because the number of unhoused people has soared and with the greater risk to sleeping outside in the colder months, the city should requisition hotel rooms for people without shelter.

Assisting unhoused people is a shared responsibility between the city and the province, but Sauve said that with winter approaching, Montreal could compel Quebec to step up emergency shelters in hotel rooms.

“When you have a secure place where people can stay at night, that’s not a tent, where they’re not in crisis mode, you can get better results with people because they have that level of safety and security,” Sauve told CTV News. “You can get further with them with the social work that’s needed with people on the streets.”

The city could do this under provincial law if it declared a state of emergency.

“I think it would be a bold move that would bring Quebec a little bit more serious on this issue,” said Sauve. “I find that Quebec is dropping the ball big time and we need to initiate this.”

Sam Watts, the CEO of Welcome Hall Mission, said that while temporarily housing people in hotels and shelters can seem like a simple and effective way to keep people out of the cold, it's not easy to do. He said Sauve is making noise to draw attention to the issue of homelessness, but without coordinated effort by governments it amounts to a patch on the problem.

"If we are going to declare an emergency, what does that practically mean?" he said.

"Now the argument, of course, is we don't want people to die on the street, and that's a fair argument. At the same time, if we're not doing the things that will actually bring solutions to bear on the complex social problem that is homelessness, then are we really helping in the long term?"

Permanent housing solutions needed

When it comes to temporary measures, it can be stress-inducing for community organizations who don't know how long their project will last and gives those who use the services a sense of instability. Some temporary shelters have closed and won't reopen, while many in transitory housing aren't finding a permanent home.

"The problem is the inflow is much greater than the outflow, and that's what we're dealing with here right now in Montreal," said Watts.

He has been asking the municipal, provincial and federal governments to better coordinate and offer subsidies to keep people in their homes, streamline services that give people pathwats to permanent housing, and ramp up the offer of specialized care for those with mental health and addiction issues. 

While we work on increasing Quebec's social and affordable housing stock, "we need to keep people who are currently housed where they are not let them slip and fall into homelessness," said Watts.

Montreal councillor Robert Beaudry holds the homeless file on the executive committee at City Hall and said he shares Sauve’s sense of urgency but that declaring a state of emergency is not the way to go about it.

He said it’s not just the cold that is killing people, but also drug use, which is an issue the provincial health network needs to address.

The Quebec Ministry of Health and Social Services pushed back against Sauve's comments that the province is dropping the ball. According to spokesperson Lambert Drainville, Montreal should have about 2,000 shelter spots available this winter, compared to 900 in 2019. He added that the government "pulled 1,000 people out of homelessness last year and is on track to double that this year." 

The government also earmarked $410 million in its 2021 plan to counter homelessness. Another announcement regarding drugs and addiction is planned for Friday

Drainville passed the ball back to the city and said it needs to build more housing faster. 

"We need housing to get people out of homelessness, that's the problem," he said. "If Montreal builds those units, we'll fund the services."