Roger-Luc Chayer (Image : AI / Gay Globe)
Yesterday afternoon, I drove a fellow journalist downtown because he had some personal matters to take care of. He asked me to wait for him in a parking lot located right next to Jeanne-Mance Street, another street closed in Montreal that forces us to take detours that are not even reasonable, but that is not the subject of my article today.
While I was waiting for him, for about 30 minutes, I found myself surrounded by several people, men and women, clearly homeless, who were sitting there contemplating the filth and garbage surrounding them. I am not talking about two or three people, but about 20 to 25, some lying on the sidewalk, others sleeping, leaning against whatever was around them.
I am used to seeing poverty in Montreal’s Gay Village, but this time I was downtown, just a few metres from the courthouse, and as far as the eye could see I saw these people abandoned by a society that nevertheless owes them help and assistance, particularly under the principles of dignity and protection recognized by the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms.
This scene deeply affected me. How can we accept that, just a few metres from the courthouse, right in the heart of Montreal, so many people can find themselves in such a state of abandonment, surrounded by garbage, with nowhere meaningful to go and without the services they clearly need?
Across Saint-Antoine Street, an open-top tourist bus was filling up with visitors who had come to discover downtown Montreal. Sitting aboard, ready to set off to explore the metropolis, they looked around them. And their faces said a lot.
I imagine that the tourist brochures had promised them something else. Perhaps beautiful architecture, lively terraces, picturesque streets, festivals and that famous image of a dynamic, welcoming Montreal that is open to the world. They had simply forgotten to mention that around the corner, they might also discover about twenty homeless people, some lying on the sidewalk, others sleeping directly on the ground, amid garbage and filth.
After all, why show that Montreal in the brochures? It would probably look less attractive on a postcard. As the bus was getting ready to leave, I watched these visitors observing the scene. Their expressions contrasted sharply with what one might imagine seeing in the promotional photographs intended to sell Montreal to tourists.
This may be one tourist attraction that nobody promotes: human misery right in the heart of downtown, just a few metres from the courthouse.
Montreal likes to present itself as a modern, prosperous and welcoming metropolis. But there is sometimes an impressive gap between the city sold in the brochures and the one visitors actually discover when they look up from their cameras.
And that day, their visit began with an image that those responsible for tourism marketing would probably have preferred to see disappear before the bus passed by.
Estimated Number of Homeless People in Montreal
According to the most recent estimates, Montreal would have between 6,000 and 10,000 people experiencing homelessness. And even that figure would probably be far from telling the whole story. In particular, it would not take into account, or would not fully take into account, hidden homelessness, which concerns people who are without stable or safe housing, but who do not necessarily live on the street and do not use shelters.
In other words, behind the people we see sleeping on sidewalks, in parks or around metro stations, there would be others, much more difficult to count, who quietly survive from one couch to another, in a car or through temporary accommodations. The visible face of homelessness would therefore be only the tip of the iceberg of a much broader problem.
And what is the City of Montreal doing to help these people? It talks, forms committees, holds consultations, organizes meetings, but, other than offering a chair in the warmth during the winter in a room of an unoccupied building, what is it actually doing?
During the approximately 30 minutes I waited in that parking lot, no one came to see whether these people needed help. And, in my eyes, a good number of them were clearly in distress.
As for me, I was sitting comfortably in my vehicle, listening to music on the radio, while some of these men and women were looking at me. Those looks were not threatening. Quite the opposite. At times, they seemed to silently plead for a little help, but above all, for a little dignity.
This scene was devastatingly sad. And, to be honest, it was heartbreaking.
Who Is Responsible for Homelessness in Montreal?
When we see, right in downtown Montreal, dozens of homeless people sleeping on sidewalks, sitting amid garbage or simply waiting, it is legitimate to ask one very simple question: who is responsible?
The answer is not as simple as pointing the finger at the City of Montreal, the Government of Quebec or the federal government. Responsibilities are shared, but that does not mean that no one is responsible.
The Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms recognizes, notably in section 45, that every person in need has the right to financial assistance measures and social measures provided for by law and likely to ensure a decent standard of living. This is an important principle, but caution is necessary: this section does not mean that every homeless person automatically has an individual right to an apartment provided by the state.
The situation is particularly interesting, however, when we look at Montreal. The Montreal Charter of Rights and Responsibilities contains a much more concrete commitment toward people experiencing homelessness. The City undertakes, in particular, to facilitate access to a temporary and safe place to sleep for people without a home.
The City also has real powers in the area of housing and can, in particular, support transitional accommodation for people in need. It is therefore not simply a powerless spectator watching what is happening in its streets.
This raises a difficult question: what does “facilitating access” to a safe place actually mean when a person is sleeping just a few metres from the courthouse, surrounded by garbage, without anyone apparently coming to ask whether they need help?
Because that is precisely what I saw.
We must also look to the Government of Quebec. It holds major responsibilities in the areas of health, social services, financial assistance and an important part of housing and social housing programs. When people suffer from health problems, addiction, poverty or social exclusion, we therefore cannot simply ask a municipality to solve the problem on its own.
As for the federal government, its role is different. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects, among other things, the right to life, liberty and security of the person, as well as the right to equality. This obviously does not mean that the federal government has no responsibility. Ottawa intervenes notably through its funding programs and national policies on housing and homelessness.
Ultimately, we therefore have a system in which responsibilities are shared among several levels of government and several organizations. And perhaps that is precisely where part of the problem lies: when everyone is responsible, it sometimes becomes very easy to find no one who actually is.
Because charters can recognize rights, governments can adopt policies and cities can create programs. But no charter, no committee and no press conference can replace something as basic as a human being approaching a person in distress and simply asking:
“Do you need help?”
Perhaps that is where we should begin, rather than with yet another consultation.
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