Hidden under the Ville-Marie Expressway in Westmount just west of Atwater, there are a dozen tents set up. Quebec’s transport ministry has told the people living there that they need to leave by 9 a.m. Thursday morning.
“It’s very hard over here. We didn’t do anything wrong. We don’t even have anything. I don’t even have a tent,” said Jacco Suban, who has lived in the encampment for several months.
The transport ministry is repairing the structure underneath the highway. A ministry spokesperson says the homeless encampment must be evicted for safety reasons.
“This particular area is the property of the Ministere de transports….We cannot have any residences, we can’t have campers because simply it is not safe,” said Sarah Bensadoun, Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility and Mobility Montreal spokesperson.
Bensadoun says the ministry is working with community organizations to find other living arrangements.
“We don’t just want to displace them somewhere else. We want to find a solution and a suitable solution according to their needs,” Bensadoun told Global News.
But advocates for the homeless say they haven’t been given anywhere to go, adding that shelters, which rarely have any space, aren’t nearby.
“The closest one would be Welcome Hall, quite a number of blocks east, and that if you’re highly intoxicated or have some significant issues, you’re not going to actually get in,” said David Chapman, Resilience Montreal executive director.
Chapman says once the campers are scattered, they won’t be as safe.
“They will not have community members around who are checking on them, who know where they are and are keeping in touch,” said Chapman.
In the past, Suban says, the ministry has negotiated with the homeless. He’s moved to a different location underneath the expressway four times this year.
“I am going to stay here because we have no choice. They haven’t given us a location to go,” said Suban.
The transport ministry has requested the help of local and provincial police to move anyone still here Thursday morning. Chapman hopes the ministry will come up with a realistic alternative by then.
“I’m doing a lot of media interviews so there is no Thursday,” he said.