Saturday evening, a homeless person came to sleep in the common area at the entrance to the tower in which I live in Montreal.
This man had not found a place in a shelter and wanted to warm up and rest a little, something that I and the other tenants present on site allowed him to do for a few hours so as not to throw him out in the cold of the night . In speaking with him, we did not feel the need to contact the authorities to escort him out.
With the cold, situations related to the homelessness crisis can quickly fall into our backyard.
Citizen saviors
Sunday morning, Mayor Valérie Plante asked for the support of the population to save the lives of people experiencing homelessness during this severe period of cold which is hitting Quebec.
She asks people to contact authorities if they witness an emergency situation and also invites them to make donations to community organizations.
The citizens of a city should not have to play the role of saviors of people experiencing homelessness.
-Too little too late
Warming stops, patrol officers deployed: additional solutions to help the homeless to warm up in this cold which will set in for the coming days are being put in place.
However, by asking for help from the population on Sunday on Facebook, Valérie Plante does not seem to have complete confidence in these additional solutions.
Building new affordable social housing, properly financing organizations, converting heritage buildings, and so on, people experiencing homelessness and the population in general deserve massive investments in order to implement permanent and solid solutions to counter the homelessness crisis.
We should not have to rely on the empathy of the population to save lives.
