Montreal shelters turning people away on New Year's Eve

On the eve of a new year, Montreal’s homeless shelters are overflowing and turning people away.

An encampment dismantled last month along Notre-Dame Street in the city's east end has returned. It has homeless organizations calling on the city and province to do more.

Inside the growing encampment, Pinky worries she’ll have to pickup and move yet again. She’s just starting to settle in her new tent.

“I'm used to the streets. But I would rather have my four walls and my roof, that's for sure,” she told CTV News.

She's one of many people who call the growing encampment home.

Sam Watts, CEO of the Welcome Hall Mission, said shelters in the city are at capacity.

“I think it says the dismantlement doesn't work, because all it does is make vulnerable people more vulnerable. And so, it shifts the location of the challenge,” said Watts.

“Generally speaking, the shelter system, the emergency response system is overloaded. And that's not just the case when it's cold. It's 100 per cent of the time.”

Cap St-Barnabé runs three emergency shelters in the Hochelaga neighbourhood.

In recent weeks workers here have had to turn away dozens of people every night

Tearing down encampments, they say, isn't a solution.

“It brings them to a warming shelter where they're allowed to stay for a certain period of time, but then ask to leave again. So, it's like rebuilding something from scratch, but with no foundation,” said Jennifer Fakhouri of Cap St-Barnabé

Pinky has been in and out of the streets since she was 13 years old.

She'd like a permanent home, but says she hit a wall when she tried to get into municipal housing.

“I used to want an HLM before I lose my kids. And they said I was on the waiting list for ten years. I'm like, my kids are going to be grown up,” she said.

Watts says shelters are only temporary options and governments should instead focus on permanent housing solutions.

“There are a variety of housing solutions in Montreal that if we started working on them right now through the course of 2025, we could actually see a visible difference. As an example, there are at least 600 units of housing that are currently boarded up. Well, let's renovate them,” he said.

Quebec's transport ministry which owns the vacant land where the encampment is, did not respond to CTV News’ request for comment.

The city says there are no plans to dismantle the encampment for now.

“There's not a lot of help for people like us on the streets. That's what I think,” said Pinky.

Meantime Watts says Welcome Hall's team is looking for a place for Pinky though she's just one of many there hoping for a fresh start.