On Dec. 2, the old Royal Victoria Hospital will serve as a temporary homeless shelter for Montreal.
It’s the second consecutive year the former hospital will house those who don’t have a fixed address, as 150 beds will be made available for men and women through to April 15, 2020.
“The advantage of having it now in the winter time is it means nobody will be forced onto the street. Nobody will be potentially not able to get into a place to sleep,” Samuel Watts, the Welcome Hall Mission CEO told Global News.
The 226 beds at the Welcome Hall Mission have been full almost every night since the summer and demand often peaks in the winter when it’s too cold to spend a night outside.
Fifteen people were turned away Monday night due to the lack of space.
“We’re looking forward for Royal Vic to open soon. So that will help. Not only us, but I guess many other places,” Fequière Desir, an intervention worker at the Welcome Hall Mission told Global News.
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Last year the shelter helped transition more than one hundred people into permanent homes.
Richard Philie spent 13 months living at the Welcome Hall Mission. For the last two months he’s been living autonomously in a subsidized housing unit in LaSalle.
It has been a life-changing experience for the Montrealer.
“You’re in your apartment. You’re by yourself. So you sleep, you don’t hear no noise — nothing,” he told Global News.
Philie just hopes others will eventually be able to follow in his steps.