1 week Ago By Toula Drimonis, Special to Montreal Gazette
Article content After four years of construction to install long-overdue elevators at Place-St-Henri métro station, we’re finally weeks away from a brand-new accessible entrance . Walking by the other day, I noticed how the new glass building contrasts beautifully with the classic architecture of St-Henri’s former post office, the oldest building in the Sud-Ouest borough, which is in the same square. The heritage building isn’t the only thing now standing in sharp contrast to the shiny new métro entrance.
Behind it, past the parking lot spruced up by blue-collar workers in anticipation of the opening, is a small, wooded area that’s long served as an encampment site for the unhoused. The once messy, grimy area containing tarps, tents and random items collected over time by its residents is now razed, trees cut and all items removed, looking desolate and bare. Shopping carts were neatly arranged side by side, each covered with a tarp and containing bits and pieces of people’s lives.
“Thank God it’s cleaned up,” someone exclaimed on a St-Henri Facebook page, yet I couldn’t help but feel uneasy about what this transformation of a “problem area” might mean for those who were sheltering in it. One would have to be blind not to notice that Montreal, like many North American cities, has long been in the throes of serious mental health and homelessness crises . These are global issues with complex causes — lack of affordable housing, addiction, domestic abuse and trauma are just some of them — and no quick fixes.
They’ve only grown worse as many find themselves a paycheque or renoviction away from being on the streets. Few issues elicit as many mixed reactions as homelessness, and I don’t envy politicians who have to straddle that fine line between reassuring skittish constituents and finding solutions. I understand the visceral reactions some have toward encampments .
They’re dirty and unsavoury-looking; the people who live in them are often strung out on drugs, talking to themselves, in psychological distress, dishevelled and unpredictable in their behaviour. Even when they’re doing nothing more than trying to survive, they still make some people uncomfortable. But that’s also my privilege talking.
People in distress, addicted to drugs, with mental health problems and no access to help because of overtaxed, underfunded and understaffed health and social-services systems , people who have lost their jobs and their homes, don’t have the luxury of a dignified lifestyle. A hot shower, a clean wardrobe, a fresh haircut are all things that make us presentable and that we take for granted. Asylum seekers are looked down upon for similar reasons.
Ordinary people living ordinary lives — until something happened. The stigma, shame and exclusion people suffering from homelessness and drug addiction experience are very real. Banal complaints are often clear-cut NIMBYism.
But Montrealers have also expressed valid concerns stemming from questionable decisions. The opening of Maison Benoît Labre’s safe injection service near a school playground in St-Henri, with a documented sharp rise in crime in the area , comes to mind. I was angered by recent news that the Quebec government is playing political ping-pong with Ottawa, being slow to accept desperately needed federal aid to tackle homelessness .
The funds would have to be matched by the province, and the Coalition Avenir Québec government has been asked to provide plans for how the money would be spent. With winter fast approaching, this is no time for petty constitutional squabbles that could deprive those in need of $100 million in services. Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante recently urged both levels of government to figure it out because, unlike in other provinces, Quebec municipalities can’t receive funds directly from Ottawa and rely on good-faith negotiations.
In the meantime, if you find yourself upset by encampments, take it out on successive governments that have failed to address the root causes of homelessness and provide permanent and adequate housing for those in need. This is a collective failure, and we can’t just make it disappear. Toula Drimonis is a Montreal journalist and the author of We, the Others: Allophones, Immigrants, and Belonging in Canada.
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