MONTREAL -- Over 100 new beds for Montreal's homeless will be made available in an East End community centre as of Friday afternoon.
In a statement jointly issued by Quebec junior minister of health and social services Lionel Carmant, who is also minister responsible for the Montreal region Chantal Rouleau and Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante, it was announced that 112 beds for homeless men and women would be placed in the Pierre-Charbonneau Centre. The centre will be open seven days a week, 24 hours per day starting at 4 p.m.
The emergency shelter will be managed by CAP St-Barnabe and Care Montreal.
The announcement comes just days after Raphael Andre, a homeless Innu man, was found dead in a chemical toilet close to the shelter where he normally spent his nights. A coroner's investigation into his death is underway.
After Andre's death, Plante asked the Quebec government to exempt the city's homeless from the province's ongoing curfew, but Premier Francois Legault declined, saying to do so could lead to other people posing as homeless.
