Cabot Square has long been a gathering place for unhoused people, so it comes as a blow that an emergency tent set up to aid the overnight population will be dismantled starting Sunday.
“One of the big questions is, where are the people who’re using the services currently going to go?” said David Chapman, executive director of Resilience Montreal, one of the organizations helping out.
The tent is an Indigenous-led initiative. It was opened as a warming centre just over a year ago after Raphaël Napa André, an Innu man who lived on the street, died one cold night in a portable toilet just steps away from a homeless shelter.
Hundreds of people were served at the tent daily.
“Normally they prepare at least 200 meals, sometimes 300 meals every single night,” Chapman noted.
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In addition, there were spots for nearly 20 people to sleep.
When questioned about the closure, Ian Lafrenière, provincial minister for Indigenous affairs, insisted that people will have options once the tent is dismantled.
“There are many solutions at this moment,” he told Global News. “As you know, Projets Autochtones du Québec (PAQ) is already in place. I was, myself, with PAQ about a month ago.”
PAQ is an organization that supports Indigenous people facing housing insecurity. It has nearly 50 beds but, according to Chapman, there’s a problem.
“Are the beds and eating facilities in the area where the people are?” he asked.
Chapman argued that people who frequent Cabot Square won’t walk the three kilometres to get to PAQ. He also disagreed with Lafrenière that there will be many options for clients of the tent project.
What’s needed, he and others point out, is a permanent 24-7 facility in the area to house and support the population.
“Because if you don’t have those kinds of services available to people, then what you actually end up doing is you end up facilitating chronicity,” said Sam Watts, Welcome Hall Mission CEO and executive director.
In a statement, the City of Montreal reiterated its commitment to finding a permanent solution, saying “the City remains committed with the various partners to finding long-term solutions and to contributing to the efforts of community organizations, the health and social services network and other levels of government to develop a housing shelter project.”
Watts believes both the city and the province had the time to get something in place, but conceded that the pandemic has made finding something permanent more challenging.
Until a building is found, advocates have to scramble again to find another temporary solution.
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