Quebec political parties need ‘common game plan’ to combat homelessness: QS

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With the homelessness crisis showing no sign of improvement, Québec solidaire called for all elected officials to meet to hammer out new solutions to improve cohabitation issues in Montreal.

“We are very worried. There is a (provincial) crisis of homelessness and Montreal is the centre of that crisis,” party co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois told reporters on a sunny morning, while standing in Place Émilie-Gamelin in the city’s Village district. “So we need all political parties from all levels of government to work together. We need a common game plan to fight homelessness, because right now, everyone is doing something, but it’s clearly not enough.”

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The party is calling for a meeting of officials from the federal, provincial and municipal levels, along with frontline workers from community groups, the city’s transit agency and Montreal police officials.

The summit should be held “as soon as possible,” but QS officials imposed no deadline for the summit to be held. The goal would be to address irritants between unhoused people and people living in neighbourhoods, said Guillaume Cliche-Rivard, the QS critic on social services. Addressing the core causes of homelessness should be still prioritized, but Cliche-Rivard said there needs to be more of an effort to provide resources to those who don’t have a home without disturbing the social cohesion, as complaints of noise, violence and insalubrious conditions are being made across the city.

Nadeau-Dubois said the time has long passed for action, and a large part of solving the problem is to provide resources where people can go at all times of the day so they don’t have to resort to sitting or sleeping on a sidewalk. While there is an action plan already in place, it is clearly failing unhoused people, he said. La Presse reported Thursday the number of people without a fixed address who died in 2023 had tripled to 62, compared with the figure of roughly 20 during each of the previous three years.

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“We really need to have that sit-down,” Cliche-Rivard said. “We’re not trying to lay blame; we’re hoping to find solutions.”

Nadeau-Dubois said while the province and city of Montreal share responsibility for homelessness, he doesn’t believe the different sectors of government have ever sat down together to discuss the issues involved.

A perfect example of elected officials not understanding each other is borough of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, he said. Borough Mayor Pierre Lessard-Blais recently requested that the Transport Ministry cede land on Notre-Dame St. in the east end, where a tent encampment has been set up. This, however, flies in the face of Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante’s policy to systematically break up encampments. The Transport Ministry would have to co-ordinate with the ministry of health and social services.

“I’m convinced that the provincial government is well-intentioned, and Plante is also well-intentioned, and everyone is doing what they can, but clearly it’s not working,” Nadeau-Dubois said.

Among the issues Cliche-Rivard would like to discuss is a concrete province-wide policy on how to deal with tent encampments.

“Nobody dreams of living in tents,” Cliche-Rivard said. “But as long as we lack solutions and a complete game plan isn’t put forward, those people will have no choice but to stay in tents.”

This story will be updated.

jmagder@postmedia.com

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