Increasing homeless population worrying with winter approaching: Montreal mayor

With winter approaching, Montreal's mayor is worried there are not enough warming shelters and says solving the housing crisis will take an entire mandate.

Condos continue to rise in Montreal, and the number of spots in emergency warming shelters is going up, too, but at a major summit on housing, the mayor says it’s still not enough.

“I know we have to do more, and we’re looking to have another plan of identifying at least 200 more spaces because I do think we’re going to run out of space,” said Montreal Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada.

Last month, the city announced there will be 3,000 spots available 24/7.

It’s a response to the increase in the homeless population.

This winter, the skating rink near the Van Horne overpass in the Plateau will be shut down. The borough explained that it’s because another nearby rink will reopen, but also, the site is occupied by a homeless encampment.

The city lost an appeal to dismantle it.

“We move tents every week,” said Martinez Ferrada. “More than 80 or 100 in the last month, and what happens is that people, when they move the tent, they come back and we have to move them.”

At the summit, officials said that nearly 30 per cent of those living in encampments are there because they were evicted. A report from the CMHC predicted that by 2028, the vacancy rate in Montreal will rise to almost 5 per cent.

According to Project Genesis, however, that’s driven by higher-end apartments, and there’s still a shortage of affordable homes.

“We always talked about having a 3 per cent vacancy rate would be sort of balanced, but this housing market is not balanced, and it’s very much tipped in favour of people who can afford high rents,” said spokesperson Margaret Van Nooten.

Day after day, service staff such as Van Nooten see people on the verge of ending up on the streets.

“These are people who might be facing, for the first time, the risk of eviction,” she said. “They’re in their 70s because they have been pressured to accept astronomical rent increases.”

The Parti Québécois announced $28 million in emergency funding to fight homelessness, and is promising a provincial summit on the issue early next year.

“I want to end encampments in Montreal, but I’m going to do that in a mandate,” said Montreal’s mayor. “I will not do that in a year. It’s impossible ... I want to make sure that, again, nobody dies in the street because it’s too cold.”