Nestled against the fence of a tennis court and steps from an elementary school sits an encampment with some 30 tents filled with people without a home.
Not long ago, François Moissan was one of them.
“I was in the same situation. I got out of it, but now I kind of [give] back. I bring food to the people who need it, and it’s not going better.”
The tents sprung up outside a former church in Longueuil, Que., on Montreal’s South Shore over the past few years in response to overcrowding at the emergency homeless shelter inside and the “strict” rules in place to access its resources, said Moissan.
The member of Résiste à la rue, an organization that helps those experiencing homelessness, said many people are barred from entering the shelter due to various infractions.
“So who are you helping?” he said. “You can’t go eat, you don’t have access to a bed, there’s no other resources in Longueuil. There’s a waiting list everywhere.”
The Halte du coin shelter can accommodate 35 people, falling significantly short of meeting demand in the area.
On Monday, Longueuil Mayor Catherine Fournier announced a plan to relocate the homeless shelter and build social housing in its place.
“We are all very concerned by the situation. We have a major rise of homelessness on our territory … especially since the pandemic,” said Fournier.
“This is the major answer to homelessness: to build social housing in order to give people a safe place to live.”
The project will include 84 social housing units for people at risk of or trying to escape homelessness by 2025. It will be built on Coteau-Rouge Road at the corner of Bourassa Street, and construction will begin at the end of July.
Meanwhile, the shelter will be relocated for at least two years to a municipal building, the Jeanne-Dufresnoy Centre, approximately a kilometre away on the corner of Curé-Poirier Boulevard and Chambly Street — away from schools and parks.
But it will have the same overnight capacity as the old one.
Pierre Rousseau, general manager of the Halte du coin, says the new shelter will start with 35 people and then see if it can accommodate more.
“It’s a new location so we want to help as [many] people as we can, but we want to do a good job, too. It’s not only bringing people in, it’s helping people to get out,” he said.
‘Hopefully the encampment will move,’ says mayor
Longueuil officials say the shelter will move to its temporary home starting in mid-July and the Halte du coin‘s current building will be demolished in August.
“To be honest, we find it a bit short,” Rousseau said of the timeline, “but it’ll give us the time to work together to maybe find another place.”
As for the encampment, which has drawn concern from parents of schoolchildren in the area, Fournier hopes the people living there will move to the new shelter location.
“Hopefully the encampment will move and we will act with the police in order to ensure that the situation is going well in the neighbourhood,” said Fournier.
The City of Montreal has intervened in 460 homeless encampments in the past year. And with warm weather on the way, front-line workers are expecting to see more.
Still, the city said there are no immediate plans to evict those living in the tents.
For Moisson, he says the new shelter isn’t enough to help the homeless population.
“The system’s not working. You need to give these people resources, ways to get out of it. Not a hot dog and a glass of water,” he said.
Fournier said homelessness is the responsibility of the federal and provincial governments.
“We are there, we want to help, we think we have a role to play, but the governments need to be there, need to be at the table,” she said.