The new Ricochet Centre in the Montreal borough of Pierrefonds-Roxboro might not be all what Mike McGillis wants it to be. For now, though, he’s happy.
“It’s not my house, but it’s my home,” he smiled.
Since December 2020, the place served as an overnight shelter, but as of Monday that’s changed.
The centre is now offering additional services to people in the west island experiencing homelessness.
“It’s a 24/7 resource with two principal programmes,” explained Tania Charron, executive director. “We have the social re-integration programme with shelter and we have emergency beds.”
The new initiative was made possible because of a one-time grant from the federal government’s Reaching Home: Canada’s Homelessness Strategy.
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Staff say the 20-bed social re-integration programme aims to help the homeless get back on their feet in a month.
The centre’s assistant director, Caroline Turpin-Hemond, pointed out that clients are expected to help out around the centre and take care of any personal administration, including apartment or job hunting.
Ricochet also has a 12-bed emergency overnight shelter to accommodate those who are not ready to reintegrate into the community.
“If it wasn’t for this place I’d be dead,” McGillis, a client there since April, told Global News.
He said he’s an alcoholic and has a host of health problems, but because he had a place to stay at night, he was able to rest and get medical help.
McGillis believes the new 24-hour service will help even more.
“It gives people hope,” he stressed. “It gives someone a hot meal, a warm place to lay their head at night where they know they’re safe.
“It’s hard out there in the streets.”
According to Charron there has long been a need for a homeless shelter in the West Island where there has always been a problem of hidden homelessness.
“Since the pandemic it has been worse for people in precarious situations,” she pointed out.
She said about half of the more than 300 clients over the last year are over the age of 50.
Charron hopes the funding will be recurring so that they can continue to help people like McGillis.