Suzanna Parsons believes recent renovations to the second floor of the Old Brewery Mission’s Patricia Mackenzie Pavilion will mean the world to women who stay there.
“Here I’d be treated like a queen, like a vacation for two days,” she laughed while sitting on one of the new beds. “I wouldn’t mind it now.”
For the Montreal mission’s 25th anniversary, officials have opened 13 semi-private rooms at the facility, the final stage in the process of replacing dormitories.
“Where people were glued up against each other and there was very little if any privacy, lots of tension, sometimes nervousness and conflict,” explained president and CEO James Hughes after a press conference to announce the opening.
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Dorms on the third floor were replaced with single rooms in 2021.
Parsons remembers what it was like to live crowded with dozens of other women in one space when she moved into the pavilion for two months in 2017.
“It was like Alcatraz. I was terrified; I had no idea what a woman’s shelter was,” she recalled, adding that she even feared for her safety and being robbed.
Now, there are separate double occupancy rooms on the second floor, something which staff point out helps to restore dignity.
“Our hopes with this new opportunity is to allow them to take some control back on their situation,” Solange Lavigne, co-director of women’s services, told reporters.
Having separate rooms also helps with mental health, staff explain.
“Absolutely. In fact we started the conversion on the floor where we provide services to women experiencing serious mental illness,” Hughes explained.
They eventually want to start a similar conversion at the men’s pavilion, but point out that the change at the women’s shelter comes at a critical time, as the rate of increase of homeless women is rising faster than men.
In 2018, at least 22 per cent of the homeless population in Quebec was women. Now it’s at least 29 per cent, according to the province’s latest count.
“A thousand women are going to be experiencing homelessness tonight, minimum,” Hughes said.
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