Fire risk: partial dismantling of a homeless people’s camp in Longueuil

The City of Longueuil carried out the partial dismantling of a camp that she tolerated on her territory since the end of summer.

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Around 9:30 a.m., mechanical excavators were busy demolishing the wooden shelter built in recent months near Roland-Therrien Boulevard and cleaning the land.

Nearly ten police officers from the Longueuil Agglomeration Police Service (SPAL) and city stakeholders were present.

By email, Longueuil explains that it carried out the partial dismantling because the rule of “one tent, one bicycle per person” and that prohibiting construction were not respected.

The accumulation of combustible materials near the tents and the shelter and propane tanks and the presence of a fireplace to heat the home posed “a safety issue and a fire risk,” indicates the City.

The tents can remain.

“I don’t think that’s right. I don’t want to be laughed at. I built that,” Danny, who built the shelter, lamented last week.

“The goal of all this, in the end, was to show my daughter, who would have come to see me, that her father was not in the street and that he built something for himself,” said entrusted the professional bricklayer-mason.

SPAL did not wish to comment on the dismantling. However, a police officer mentioned 24 hours that he had “never seen so many homeless encampments” on the South Shore in his 20-year career.