More homeless camps crop up around town
The Journal describes more homeless camps along Notre-Dame East, as does La Presse. Closure of temporary shelters is being blamed. The city is preparing to rebuild a rooming house in Ville-Marie, and obviously we need more like this, but Quebec is not being generous to the city when it comes to housing.
Ephraim 12:24 on 2020-08-06 Permalink
We need rooming houses… a lot more. But we also need special tenancy rules for them, because they are more shared than standard apartments and one resident can be a lot more disruptive to the harmony than with other dwellings.
Kate 13:54 on 2020-08-06 Permalink
We really do. A lot of people would be off the streets if they could have a clean bedroom and bathroom and share kitchen and social rooms with others. The problem is that someone would have to be paid to oversee the situation and keep the common rooms reasonably clean.
Ephraim 15:05 on 2020-08-06 Permalink
Actually, regulations forbid a private kitchen. You can have a microwave for cooking. Though, today you could get most of what you get with a kitchen with a toaster oven or an air fryer, if you know how to use it. (An air fryer is the reverse of an oven, it heats from the top rather than the bottom.)
Yes, you need someone there. But usually that’s an owner, who’s running the place. But as I said, they need legal protections that allow them to kick someone out immediately for violation of the law/rules. For example, unless they are very well trained, most people can’t handle alcoholics/drug addicts in such a situation, those people need to be removed to a specialized rooming house. And we still need those, but those need specialized training.
The standard Quebec lease and protections won’t work in this kind of situation… you can’t wait for a rental court to give an exclusion order.