With the holidays in full swing and the chilly weather upon us, the city’s homeless often seek shelter wherever they can find it.
A small corner nook at the Berri-UQAM metro entrance on St-Denis Street and de Maisonneuve Boulevard is one such space — or at least it was — until the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) installed a metal fence completely blocking it off.
Alexandre Paradis is the founder of SOS Itinérance, a homeless outreach group.
He said the corner was a place where he could always find homeless people, often in need of help.
He argued the new fencing is a prison meant to push the homeless out.
“It’s a way to move them without saying that they want to clean out the homeless people in the city,” he said.
And some metro users seem to agree.
“I find it ridiculous,” a Montreal resident told Global News. “Spending money to put barriers like that up, instead of helping the homeless – it’s terrible.”
In a statement to Global News, Isabelle Tremblay, an STM spokesperson, said they do not take part in social profiling.
“At this isolated spot in particular, we noticed a lot of criminal acts, so we secured it by the installation of doors,” Tremblay said.
However, Paradis doesn’t believe that.
He wants the space to go back to how it was.
“Just take it down,” Paradis said. “It’s the gate of shame.”
No one from the City of Montreal was available for an interview Friday.
In a statement to Global News, a city spokesperson said Montreal’s homeless advocate, Serge Lareault, agrees with the STM’s arguments about reducing criminal activity and he’s currently working on ways to improve the city’s homelessness issue.