Fortunately, a couple who saw the flames spring from their camp came to their rescue.
“I was afraid. It is a couple who passed by there who helped me … If it was not them, I think I would have stayed there, “she said, adding that she is now thinking of this moment every day.
Today, faced with the debris of her camp, Mélanie says he has “heartache”.
“My books … it’s my whole life. This is my story, ”she says, adding that she has been writing for a long time.
Mélanie found herself in the street due to the housing crisis. After losing her apartment, she found herself in the room and following a love sentence, she had nowhere to go.
“The rent, all alone, I couldn’t. I am waiting for the government to stop undeising myself to have my money, it’s been since November that I have no income, ”she said.
With the return of hot weather, the camps multiply again on the edge of rue Notre-Dame, but the risk of fire worries the neighborhood.
“The girl could have died. It’s inconceivable. Honestly, I find it inhuman, it is not logical to leave them there, ”commented a neighbor at the microphone of Noovo Info.
The head of the official opposition file deplores that he has no response to give them.
“It is difficult to understand after three years that we still have not had a document despite committees with experts who have been summoned and that there have been de facto recommendations. We are still not given anything, ”reports Benoît Langevin, advisor responsible for the roaming file at Ensemble Montréal.
Note that the city of Montreal had to have a protocol to supervise the camps, but it is still not done.
The firefighters, on the other hand, say they have visited the premises several times this winter, as soon as the mercury descended at the bottom of -20 ° C, and even recently in March.
The city official in terms of homelessness, Robert Beaudry, says that the CAQ government can collaborate with Montreal to find a solution.
“The city and the community partners are mobilized, but despite all the efforts, the imbalance that persists between the number of available resources offered by Quebec and the needs on the territory remain a major barrier”, he commented by email, adding that “the people who are in the camps are often those who require specialized support”.
See the report by Véronique Dubé.
