'It's a great way to hasten an early death': Montreal emergency warming station closes as city says it's not cold enough to keep open

A city-run warming station that sheltered more than 1,000 people has closed with the city saying it's not cold enough outside to keep it open.

It was being run out of the YMCA on Stanley Street in the Ville-Marie borough. Normally the city only opens the shelter as an emergency measure when the temperature dips to -27 degrees. The city did decide to open the Stanley Street location before it hit that mark, but then closed it on Thursday.

According to data obtained by CTV News, on the 12 nights it was opened in late December and early January an average of 108 people used the shelter. At its peak on the night of Jan. 6, 158 people used the service. A new shelter run by EMMIS in the Lucien-Saulnier building in Old Montreal remains open. At its peak on Dec. 26, 55 people stayed the night.

While the city has closed its downtown service, other resources for the homeless are over capacity.

"We're a day shelter and we have people literally sleeping in all the hallways," says Resilience Montreal's David Chapman.

While sleeping outside can be dangerous year-round, that risk is especially acute in the winter. Chapman says his shelter has started an unofficial count of how many people have died on the street of Montreal in the past seven months.

"We're in the teens somewhere," he says adding the true number isn't known because it's not kept track of by any agency. "Literally every week there seems to be someone else who's added to the number."

Chapman fears cutting off another resource will put even more people at risk. "There's going to be some people who say, 'I do not want to force my way through a crowd (at another shelter),' and so they just go make their own way. It's a great way to hasten an early death."

Many with nowhere to go have been turning to Montreal's already crowded emergency rooms as a refuge.

"One of the realities of homelessness is you have to be incredibly creative just to survive," says Welcome Hall Mission's Sam Watts. He says his service is seeing record numbers of people in need.

"There are more people coming into the ecosystem of care than are exiting from it right now, even though we're housing more people than we ever have in the history of the mission or in the history of Montreal," he says.

Watts adds the closing of the city's emergency services is especially troubling because it's often a final resort. "I hate to see warming centers closed because they're the last line of defense," he says.

That's a sentiment echoed by Old Brewery Mission head James Hughes. "It's really bad news to see the YMCA closed. We would have liked to see it stay open and managed not just during the evening, but during the day as well," he says. His organization has had to turn people away and scramble to find places for them to stay for the night at other locations.

"You don't wish this on absolutely anybody."