“It’s sad… it’s probably the fentanyl”: a young homeless person reportedly died of an overdose in a homeless encampment

A young man died of an overdose in a homeless camp in Saint-Henri where paramedics intervened three times in less than two months.

“It’s sad…it’s probably the fentanyl. We took him out of the tent. We thought he was asleep, but he was all blue,” says Thomas, who did not want to reveal his last name so as not to have his three little daughters recognize him.

The 40-year-old man admits that he did not know the young person very well who had just moved into a tent not far from his in the camp at the foot of the Turcot interchange, in the South-West district. .

Paramedics noted the death of a man in his early twenties on site on October 24, confirms Stéphane Smith, spokesperson for Urgences-santé.

This was the third time since September 15 that paramedics responded to this location for a code 23, calls related to overdoses.

A growing camp

At the passage of Journal On Monday, there were more than fifteen tents and a truck parked there.

Boxes of syringes and first aid kits are even available to campers, making it feel like a half-supervised injection site.

“These are people in the camp who took the initiative, we are only supporting them. They are trying to organize themselves as best they can. People don’t want to see them,” explains Cédric Cervia, deputy director of the TRAC organization, which deploys street workers in the sector.

He did not comment on potential cases of overdose, saying that “investigations are ongoing.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. The market is increasingly toxic,” underlines Jean-Sébastien Fallu, professor at the School of Psychoeducation at the University of Montreal.

The addiction expert points out that people living in camps are at greater risk of overdose than the general population.

According to him, further dismantling would not be the solution. “We cannot make these people disappear. There are even greater risks if we move them. They will continue to exist in even greater precariousness and marginality,” he believes.

No dismantling planned

Although the camp was cleaned this spring, dismantling is not planned in the short term on the land whose jurisdiction is shared by the Ministry of Transport, which manages the land.

“The workers who crisscross the territory make sure to continually refer people experiencing homelessness to different resources,” said Aimée Evouna, communications manager for the South-West district, in an email.