The homeless encampment on Notre-Dame Street East will soon have a new addition: trailers will be installed as warming stations. The city is also asking building owners to offer up their spaces to house people overnight. “You need to make sure that you keep the link, which is the human link between that person and the outreach worker. When that person has to go very far to find a warming shelter, you can lose that link,” said Montreal Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada on the importance of bringing shelter to people. Community organization L’Anonyme will park a construction trailer near the encampment to have 10 spots available 24/7. “These are emergency measures in a crisis situation,” says L’Anonyme’s Julien Montreuil. “When people are forced to come inside to sit for the night so they don’t freeze to death, I think as a society we can do better.” Last weekend, a man in Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie died after his tent caught on fire. Police believe he was trying to stay warm. “The person was isolating themselves and wasn’t in a place where you, as a citizen, would see the person. So, this is like next level of marginalization,” said executive committee member for cohabitation Benoit Langevin. The city says it will surpass its goal of adding 500 new spots in warming shelters by Christmas with a total of 532 spaces. It’s also asking business and building owners to come forward and register with the city to offer up their spaces for the homeless. “It has to have a bus stop. There is a list of criteria that needs to be followed which adds to the difficulty to find places that are ideal. There is no ideal scenario. This is crisis management,” Langevin said. He added that people can email the city with questions and offers. Many new warming stations have come with concerns from nearby residents over cohabitation and safety. The mayor says people are “right to be concerned,” but she hopes “we live in a society where that concern is not more important than the life of somebody that might, you know, die in the winter.” Welcome Hall CEO Sam Watts thinks the trailers are “commendable.” “We need to keep people alive. We can’t just sit back and hope for the best,” he said. “The key thing is to make sure facilities and services are available that meet people where they are.” But, the situation is still “suboptimal,” and emergency shelters and warming stations are temporary measures, not solutions to the homelessness crisis, he says. The ultimate goal, he stresses, is for everyone to have a roof over their head. But, he adds, the resources aren’t there to make that happen quickly. Until then, Watts says, it’s important to make sure people aren’t isolated or put in even more dangerous situations while camping out. The hope is to have the warming station open in January.
