Certain solutions adopted by California cities to try to combat the homelessness crisis could be implemented in Montreal, according to Mayor Valérie Plante, but their deployment depends on the Quebec government, she emphasizes.
Published at 12:58 a.m.
Updated at 6:00 a.m.
“Housing the homeless in hotels could be a temporary solution here too, or in mobile homes, or tiny homes, with on-site support. People could stay there while we find something else. When there are mental health problems, in particular, things don’t work in shelters. And a shelter is not a place to live permanently, it must lead to housing,” argued Mme Plante, during an interview with The Pressin May, while she was in Los Angeles.
During an economic mission intended to attract more film shoots to Montreal, Valérie Plante took the opportunity to meet the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass. The two elected officials notably discussed homelessness, revealed Mme Plant.
Read our report “At the heart of the American homelessness crisis”
Read our file “A municipal “campsite” for the homeless”
The camps are much fewer in Montreal than in Californian cities, but they are still growing in size. Could Montreal create supervised camps, as San Diego did?
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Mayor Valérie Plante in an interview with our journalist in Los Angeles, last May
“It’s not a solution that we can envisage with the climate we have,” replies M.me Plant. This would not allow for dignified and safe living conditions. » A responsibility to share?
The mayor emphasizes that homelessness is a responsibility of cities in the United States, which is not the case in Quebec.
They receive funding from their States to put solutions in place. In our country, it is the provincial government which is responsible for the problem.
Valérie Plante would agree that the City of Montreal should take care of this since, ultimately, it is she who must manage the presence of the camps. “We would take responsibility. We would like to have a discussion with the government so that there is greater involvement of municipalities in the management of homelessness, but the money would have to come with it and we would not always have to beg.” she said, recalling that cities’ revenues come almost exclusively from property taxes.
Rent hotels
As Los Angeles and San Diego do, “renting hotels is not a bad solution,” believes Valérie Plante, recalling that the Hôtel des Arts had been used to house homeless indigenous people during the pandemic. This was also the case for the Place Dupuis hotel.
According to her, the government, however, realized that building social housing would cost less than renting hotel rooms all year round. This is why he would have renounced this practice.
“But building housing will take three years. In the meantime, we need a temporary solution,” she said, emphasizing that support must also be offered during this period.
The mayor is particularly concerned about people who do not go to shelters because they are “disaffiliated from the system, due to mental health problems”, or because they have animals or drug problems . “What do we do with them?” ”, she asks.
“The disorganized people who scream in the street are the ones who scare the population. Those who don’t fit. I spoke about it with Lionel [Carmant, ministre responsable des Services sociaux], of these people who escape services. I would like us to work on that. »
The situation in Montreal is still less dramatic than in Los Angeles, insists Valérie Plante. In the big Californian city, there are nearly 75,000 homeless people, including nearly 6,000 children. “It’s a situation that we don’t know, fortunately, but it breaks my heart to see this data on children,” she confides.
