Homelessness: Quebec is slow to accept tens of millions of dollars from Ottawa

To put an end to the encampments and fight against homelessness, the Canadian government is promising more than $50 million to Quebec, but the Legault government is slow to accept the amount, - has learned. In Montreal, shelters are wondering if they will see the money before the cold weather arrives.

This creates worry and anxiety for the teams on the groundexplains Jaëlle Bégarin, the CEO of Maison du père, a shelter in Montreal that is running out of places.

Every day, in the metropolis, emergency accommodation centers have to refuse dozens of people and the camps are growing.

In September, the Trudeau government announced a total envelope of $250 million (New window) to help Canadian provinces deal with the problem of homeless encampments before winter.

According to our information, several provinces, including Alberta, have accepted Ottawa’s conditions and the funding agreements will be announced next week. But, according to the latest news, this is not the case in Quebec.

Joëlle Bégarin urges the province and the federal government to speed up their discussions so that the money reaches those who need it.

We’re talking about numbers, but in the meantime, we’re witnessing enormous human costs.

The situation is really serious, we are experiencing a humanitarian crisis in Montrealadds the general director of the Social Development Corporation, Martin Raymond, who had to lay off specialized workers.

Hurry up!launches the president and CEO of the Mission Old BreweryJames Hughes. We need the two governments to find an agreement. […] Otherwise, we will have a very hard winter.

Ottawa evening impatient

The office of the federal Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities, Sean Fraser, explains that it is waiting for Quebec Minister of Social Services Lionel Carmant to meet the two conditions of the funding:

• provide a matching contribution to the federal investment;
• provide community plans to detail how the money will be used.

We wrote to Minister Carmant to ask him to collaborate with us, and the agreement is currently being negotiated. We look forward to being able to allocate this funding in Quebec communities to help prevent and reduce out-of-shelter homelessness in Quebec.

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According to a government source, Quebec would be reluctant to provide the plans. Furthermore, we do not yet know if the Legault government will match the fifty million dollars from the federal government.

Quebec is hopeful

Negotiations are going very wellassures the special advisor to Minister Carmant’s office, Marie Barrette. We are confident of reaching an agreement very soon.

As for Quebec’s financial participation, discussions are already underway considering all the money that the government invests in homelessness.

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If the two parties manage to agree, more than 100 million would be injected into shelters and the various services helping the homeless. Montreal can hope to receive half the amount.

The count carried out two years ago concluded that there are 10,000 people experiencing homelessness in Quebec, half of them in Montreal. Several regional cities have experienced strong increases, such as Gatineau, and camps are multiplying everywhere, particularly in Quebec.

Municipalities have repeatedly asked the Legault government to do more because “the crisis is growing.”

Last year, a report commissioned by the Union of Municipalities of Quebec calculated that providing shelter to the homeless is less expensive for society than all the services they would use while remaining on the street, i.e. more than 70 $000 per person, per year.

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Like other cities, Montreal faces increasingly difficult cohabitation between residents and the homeless.

Complaints linked to the camps have exploded, confirms James Hugues, of the Mission Old Brewery. He believes that the expected additional money should be used for a team of professionals dedicated to supporting people in the camps.

According to him, Montreal and Quebec have fallen behind Ontario cities in this regard.

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James Hughes and several community stakeholders say that homeless people who do not have a place to stay have developed strategies to keep warm in the winter. Some spend the night in emergency waiting rooms.

Others go further and voluntarily imprison themselves before the cold season to have a roof over their heads and guaranteed food.

It’s terrible, we can do betterconcludes James Hughes.