Christopher Curtis writes about the problems of a curfew for the homeless, whose problems are complicated in ways that most of us can hardly imagine.
Updates from January, 2021 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
A new music director has been chosen for the OSM to take up Kent Nagano’s wand.
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Kate
Dépanneurs, which often stay open as late as 11 to meet the beer and cigarette needs of their clientele, will suffer from the 8 p.m. curfew starting Saturday.
Faiz imam
Is this the case for gas stations as well? are the 25h ones closed too?
GC
It does suck for them, but if we are all following the curfew then they wouldn’t have any business anyway? I suppose they could miss out on some by people who have legitimate reasons to be out–those working night shifts, etc.
Kate
I’ll see if I can find chapter and verse on this, but I saw something about the deps connected to gas stations being allowed to stay open. If so, that’s unfair to the usually family-run deps in nearby neighbourhoods, but I also see the argument that you have to have something available for the folks working evening or night shift.
GC
Yeah, it seems like the gas station ones are more likely to be corporate ones, so that’s does seem like an unfair punishment to the neighbourhood ones. You definitely need fuel available for those working at night…but are the food and drinks “essential”? Maybe, if it’s the only place to get them at that hour?
Kate
All grocery stores and dépanneurs are required to close by 7:30 p.m.
One exception will be made for pharmacies, gas stations and dépanneurs attached to gas stations, which may stay open past 7:30 p.m.
If I owned a regular dépanneur I’d be pretty annoyed by this. Do those gas station deps sell beer and cigarettes? They shouldn’t be allowed to – they should be restricted to a few items, maybe milk and bread.
Max
CTV also has a long list of exceptions to the curfew:
Kate
Max, reading the CBC piece again I am struck by how out of touch Geneviève Guilbault is with the city:
On Thursday, Public Security Minister Geneviève Guilbault said that while people are allowed to be outside in their own backyards after curfew, no circulating in public will be allowed, even on foot.
Has she any idea how many Montrealers have no back yard?!
DeWolf
Guilbault grew up in Greenfield Park, went to Laval University and has lived in Quebec City since then, so I don’t think she has any sense of how most people in Montreal actually live.
(Quebec City also has a lot of people living in areas with no backyards, but something tells me a CAQiste hasn’t spent much time in St-Sauveur, Limoilou or St-Jean-Baptiste.)
Blork
I don’t think that backyard thing is out of touch. While many apartment-dwellers don’t have a back yard, most triplexes do, and once you get outside of the center there are many single-family houses (I don’t mean the far burbs; Lasalle, St-Henri, Petite-Patrie, etc. )
So there are literally hundreds of thousands of Montrealers who DO have a back yard, and it’s perfectly legitimate to let them know that the curfew does not apply to those yards. IOW, you don’t have to stay IN YOUR HOUSE, you just have to stay ON YOUR PROPERTY.
Just because a lot of people don’t own property doesn’t nullify the question.
Blork
… it’s a bit like saying “Why are they talking about schools? Don’t they know how many Montrealers don’t have children?”
Blork
To be clear: I think Kate and DeWolf are interpreting that backyard statement as her saying “the curfew is not a problem because you can just hang out in your back yard” but I’m guessing she’s simply answering the question “does the curfew apply to my back yard?”
DeWolf
Yes, Blork, but she also made a point of saying you couldn’t step onto the sidewalk outside your home for a smoke break. It echoes the kind of hand-wavey sentiment we’ve heard all year from people living in single-family houses with lots of outdoor space. “Why are the parks so busy? People should just stay in their backyards.”
Only 32% of people in the whole of Greater Montreal live in single-family houses, according to the 2016 census. That includes all the suburbs. That is indeed hundreds of thousands of people, but there are millions more whose only private access to the outdoors is a small balcony – if that.
DeWolf
I should add that if it’s illegal to take a smoke break on the sidewalk, I expect to see the SPVM hassling a lot of people standing outside their balcony-less apartment buildings in neighbourhoods like Park Ex.
Mark Côté
Reminds me of the provincial pot laws that allowed landlords to unilaterally add smoking bans to leases but prevented smoking in public places. A newly legalized substance that hundreds of thousands of renters were effectively prohibited from using (notwithstanding the government saying “they can just use edibles”, which is a rather different experience from smoking that just added to the perception of how out of touch they are).
GC
Keeping pharmacies open does make sense to me, but they should probably also be restricted from selling the full range of groceries during the curfew hours.
Maybe not to best time to be the bitter non-smoker, but people already smoked plenty of places they weren’t supposed to–like right in front of public entrances. I’m not expecting much change in enforcement there. Though I will concede it’s a major hassle for those who don’t have a yard/balcony, however, and can’t/won’t smoke indoors, for whatever reason. And, as others have mentioned, it’s an extra difficult time to consider quitting…
Kate
Blork, I have a small back yard, but that’s only because I was lucky enough to rent a ground-floor flat. The people living on the two floors above me have no access to it, although they do have balconies. That’s the usual rule, I believe. So the rows and rows of triplexes may mostly have yards (some don’t) but not everyone living in them has one.
I was struck just now by what Pharmaprix can sell and what it can’t. It can’t sell light bulbs. Surely if you have a lightbulb burn out, it’s not frivolous to want to buy a replacement?
Blork
My only point is that telling people the curfew doesn’t apply to backyards is a legitimate comment, given there are plenty of people with back yards and many of them may have been wondering. The fact that many other people don’t have back yards doesn’t disqualify the legitimacy of the question, in the same way that answering questions about schools is legit even if many people don’t have kids.
Ephraim
I can’t wait for them to have to clear snow after 9PM and no one can go outside to move their cars 😀
Michael Black
Always see the best in everything.
Kate
Also – shoe dropping – how many people hang out in their back yards in January?
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Kate
The city has bought another lot in Park Ex with the intention of building social housing, but it still needs money from Quebec to put something up. Ottawa has put aside money for housing, but it has to pass through Quebec before Montreal gets any – and we know just how much the CAQ loves Montreal.
david155
Good project, even if it’ll be a while til it gets funded. Bigger problem is I look at that 22 unit number on such a large lot and wonder why we aren’t we talking about 100 units. Based on land acquisition, and what I know you can do with that site, 22 units there (depending on the mix) should end up coming in at ~$275,000/unit if we’re lucky.
This article is inaccurate (by leaving stuff out or saying it in a weird way) in many respects about building in Montreal (including the impacts of activists, role of the province, and more) but is basically grounded in a realistic understanding of housing economics and, so, informative to the lay person on how costs actually work at a higher level of abstraction: https://www.city-journal.org/montreal-affordable-housing. The final section there (if you can call it a section) is the key takeaway, obviously.
The relationship to this eventual Parc-Ex project: these 22 units could be 100 units at no extra cost if we brought in a private promoter, gave him the exact amount of money the city/province intends to spend, and then got deed covenants on the 22 units, all on the condition that the city passed bylaws to nuke lot coverage maximums or setbacks, raised the height limits, etc.
There’s a strange sort of activist strain where many militants for affordable housing or anti-homeless or whatever – especially your Jaggi types – rail against capitalism, everyone in any position of authority, all people with jobs, etc. But then they fundamentally accept the completely absurd zoning and other restrictions imposed by the city and boroughs as if they’re natural, normal, proper, and – in some sense – immutable. But they’re not! Especially on these empty(ish) lots and especially when we’re talking government-backed housing, we should be building like crazy.
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Kate
This is not the first time we’ve seen reports of police trying to crack down on illegal social gatherings in cars in parking lots.
GC
In addition to the possible Covid transmission, I am annoyed by the unnecessary car idling…
I’m not sure I get it, though. Wouldn’t it be far easier to just have people over to your house? If you’re already breaking the rules, why not go all in? I could see if it were extra-marital, but then it (likely) wouldn’t be a half-dozen cars. Is it teenagers who have nowhere indoors to illegally meet?
MarcG
I think that these people have built their personhood around their cars so without them there isn’t much left.
qatzelok
Well, if they’re teens, they’re probably not wealthy enough to have built their personhood around a waterfront McMansion yet.
Give them time.
Bert
It could be possible to have a (shudder) responsibly distanced get-together in a parking lot. Noted UK- BBC – show did 5 episodes post-C, with the traditional in-hangar crowd parked 6+ feet apart. The previous report (on which I took Kate to task) was not about the meet in-and-of it self but rather the idiotic, stupid and dangerous driving antics that preceded / resulted from the meet.
Heck, in any car show that I have been to, participated in, witnessed, the cars are further apart from one another than when I park my car at the furthest spot at my local grocery.
That said, I would be interested to see what kind of cars were out in a Quebec-winter car show!
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Kate
A man is in critical condition Thursday after being shot behind Joliette metro station. TVA adds that the victim is known to police.
Update: The young man has died, making him the first homicide of 2021.
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Kate
The mayor is concerned that the homeless and the street workers who look after them be spared by the new curfew law. It would be futile to fine a homeless person for breaking curfew, but we’ve seen that the illogic of fining homeless people who have no money has never held police back from doing it.
Bill Binns
Yes of course she is. She’s going to show up at a press conference one of these days with a face tattoo to more closely identify with her favorite slice of the demographic.
If I get caught outside after curfew I guess I can quickly try to act as if I was rooting around in the gutter looking for cigarette butts.
walkerp
Just a dick response even for you, Bill Binns.
Michael Black
But they clarified it, dogs can be walked past curfew, just stay 1Km from home.
But I haven’t routinely carried ID in forty years, so unless being with a dog gives protection, I could see getting arrested.
Though, Pokey gkes to bed pretty early now that he’s a senior dog.
EmilyG
Bill, people who do have homes can be inside them during curfew hours.
It appears you were triggered once again by the mention of homeless people, and the implication that they somehow might have special privileges.Josh
Thirding what walkerp and EmilyG have said. New depths, Bill.
Bill Binns
@Emily “might have special privileges”?? Might? The article is about the mayor imploring everyone to respect the rules and then seconds later saying “well except for these people over here”.
We well know that these people have a place to sleep at night because if they didn’t we would be finding frozen corpses on the street every morning. In fact, when was the last time we heard of a homeless person freezing to death in this city that has deadly temperatures for 5 months a year? I’m sure it’s happened but I don’t ever recall hearing about a single case.
Michael Black
My friend Helen used to sleep out, she was glad to have two sleeping bags. She never said anything about the coldest days. She made use of day shelters, but never said why she stayed out at night. She seemed overly optimistic for her situation, but she didn’t panhandle, do drugs and was intelligent.
People did die in winter, one change is that the shelters put more effort into getting people inside on the coldest nights, including a shuttle to go looking for them.
If more people are outside this winter, either because they lost their “home” or are suddenly avoiding shelters, there may be deaths if it gets cold enough, peoole not prepared or skilled to live in the cold.
There is no privilege to sleeping outside. It’s no adventure. Everyone would want to be inside, but on their terms. Most of us wouldn’t be happy in an institutional setting, either. They are trying to find a place to sleep, or walking around to keep warmer. They aren’t likely to be spreading the virus, compared to privilege out looking for a good time. The homeless have a need to be out after curfew, just like those going to a job.
Don’t cancel Bill, I don’t see his comments as evil, just coming from a different place.
steph
Let me just copy paste a post by Jaggi Singh on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/JaggiMontreal/posts/10157581339641176?fbclid=IwAR3Mi61rlX5m-BKtQgkVFtS55k_mR2e0xbvtY3HW_QJTS7jnbEhet4dMJWoNo curfews, no police, no snitching! More social solidarity, mutual aid, and massive public funding.
“Stricter” public health pandemic guidelines in Quebec make a lot of sense, and would have made a lot of sense back in November. But, effective public health prioritizes providing material resources, particularly to marginalized populations, but really to all who have limited incomes. It also means substantive and significant increases in resources and funding to key sectors like health and education (pay increases; smaller classrooms; free laptops/tablets for every kid in school in Quebec; expenditures to improve ventilation in schools and workplaces; etc).
But, authoritarian approaches — like increased policing, encouraging snitching, and blanket curfews — are not rooted in actually improving public health, and are rarely actually advocated by public health experts on the frontlines. Authoritarian and paternalistic approaches also backfire in working class communities, where we don’t like being condescended to, particularly by cops and discredited politicians (or petty neighborhood snitches). These cop-centered approaches are antithetical to collective solidarity and health, and end up promoting communities that turn on each other, rather than punching up and attacking structural reasons for the failure of our pandemic response.
A blanket curfew, if that’s what Quebec Premier François Legault announces tomorrow, will reinforce the constant seeking of scapegoats, usually by blaming other members of society, and the continued reliance on cops. Meanwhile the truly pernicious actors in our society — primarily unapologetic capitalists and their greed — get a get-out-of-jail free card.
The virus does not act differently at night, and there are plenty of reasons to be out after 8 or 9pm without in any way compromising collective public health goals, and without being harassed by cops demanding to know what exactly you are doing and with who. Getting out of the house, spontaneously, at any hour, is a harm reduction strategy, particularly in crowded households which exist disproportionately in poor and immigrant neighborhoods.
As others have pointed out, particularly grassroots frontline community workers and activists, the curfew will have horrible implications for the homeless, for people in distress, even for undocumented people since police will definitely feel enabled to demand people’s personal information in the context of the curfew, including undocumented workers. This means more potential detentions and deportations.
Seemingly more mundane (but still important to our mental health): what about walks, exercise, dog walking or all the other things we do, and have done safely, after 8pm? True to Legault’s management of the pandemic, the curfew is authoritarian and meant to scare people, not to actually improve our collective health, and in reality something that will worsen public health, including the pandemic response, in tangible ways. It’s also something that makes no sense to the cosmopolitan reality of urban areas like Montreal (which is also true to the Legault brand).
There is a left, progressive, pro-science position that both advocates for taking the pandemic and public health measures seriously, and refuses to pander to unnecessary and counterproductive authoritarian measures that end up centering cops, and not solid public health policy. Such a position needs to continue to take up more space publicly, and uncompromisingly oppose curfews and cops while promoting effective pandemic responses that create long-term social justice and solidarity.DeWolf
Thanks for sharing that, Steph. I agree completely.
DeWolf
On the topic of the curfew, I wonder how it will impact testing given that testing sites are currently open until 8pm, and they’ll now have to close earlier. I also wonder if it will slow down vaccinations.
I also worry it will have a very big impact on people in isolation being able to have groceries delivered. I’ve been trying to order groceries for the past couple of days and it’s virtually impossible – all supermarket delivery slots are full for the next week. The curfew will only make the situation worse now that all grocery stores and deps must close at 7:30pm.
jeather
Testing would be medical care, surely, and thus exempt?
Michael Black
Ordering groceries was an issue in the early spring, but it became relatively open later. Maybe there’s panic ordering now, or it’s hangover from the holidays.
david44
Of course Jaggi has this line that enforcement of a pandemic-related curfew is racist and imperialist. It’s also highly on-brand for him to rail against “snitching.’ You have to appreciate a guy who concedes that his form of brazen criminality-as-activism is, yeah, straight up criminality. Lesser ‘activists’ would argue semantics or talk about proportionality or the history of change. Jaggi says fuck that noise, I’m a stone cold criminal in the eyes of a society that should be abolished/up-ended/whatever. Aux lendemains qui chantent, Jaggi, aux lendemains qui chantent.
EmilyG
Here is an article that could be useful. A list of acceptable reasons you could be outside when it’s during curfew hours.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/acceptable-reasons-to-circulate-curfew-1.5864577?cmp=rssMichael Black
I notice a lot of that list implies a car. But that’s “normal”.
MarcG
@david: Your comment would be a lot more interesting if you provided rebuttals to his points rather than simply saying “jaggi bad man”.
DeWolf
As far as I can tell, the only thing Jaggi Singh has ever been convicted of is tearing down a fence outside the infamous G20 summit in Toronto. And he plead guilty.
Bill Binns
Nothing like a thousand word quote from an anarchist to change hearts and minds . At least it wasn’t Banksy again.
DeWolf
Why do libertarians have so much disdain for anarchists? Is it because they value freedoms beyond the ones that allow you to make money?
Mark Côté
DeWolf: The disdain runs both ways, as people like Murray Rothbard co-opted the term from old-school anarchists—one of the many instances of the right taking ideas from the left and twisting them to their own purposes. To quote Rothbard, “One gratifying aspect of our rise to some prominence is that, for the first time in my memory, we, ‘our side,’ had captured a crucial word from the enemy . . . ‘Libertarians’ . . . had long been simply a polite word for left-wing anarchists, that is for anti-private property anarchists, either of the communist or syndicalist variety. But now we had taken it over…”
MarcG
The real question here is why do people on the right feel no shame in admitting that they have trouble reading anything longer than a meme.
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Kate
It is not heartening to read that some hospitals have called for refrigerated morgue trucks again.
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Kate
A worker in the CN yard at Bridge Street was killed Wednesday in a mishap with a train, although there’s no details. Federal authorities will investigate.
Michael Black 22:07 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
Wasn’t a or maybe the reason for Montreal declaring a state of emergency all those months ago was to be in a position to help the homeless? And they keep renewing it every five days or whatever the length is.
David256 03:23 on 2021-01-08 Permalink
I also heard that from someone, that the weird five day thing was related to the homeless somehow.
On the question of that article, I’m still just really surprised at the conversation around the freedom and self-actualization of the homeless as a progressive goal to address the – I think quite dire – situation that homelessness is.
You have ‘progressive’ people saying that we should accept the choice of the homeless to live in tents on a Rene Levesque median or an empty lot nearby, even come winter. We have set up stations where the government is now serving drink to alcoholics and drugs to junkies, and the police are not called when there’s violence or, if called, are on orders not to log it. We have this new thing where, during a global pandemic, pretty much anyone ambling around or known to police has been exempt from all the mask (and now curfew) instructions. And this is all seen as good somehow, with some even saying that it’s racist and violent to impose measures like a curfew.
I think I must have megadosed on PCP or scopolamine along the way, but somewhere in the period between when I was paying pretty keen attention to these things and now, it seems like I missed a pretty radical shift in the entire philosophy of how to treat human misery.
I perfectly get and support harm reduction. If it works. But are we even keeping data on some of the goofy stuff we’re doing now? How does having tent cities along Rene Levesque in winter advance anything but human misery?
David256 03:40 on 2021-01-08 Permalink
And I know the pat answer is obviously – well, where else will they go? We don’t have the money to house them, so we should support them when they’re set up in tents. It’s good logic and I support it to a certain point. But it’s a crazy position for a group of progressive people to hold, just crazy.
Myles 08:16 on 2021-01-08 Permalink
Well, where will they go? It’s not pat, nor is it an answer. It’s a concrete problem that needs to be solved. There aren’t enough places in shelters for all of our homeless people and many shelters have rules in place that exclude people anyway. There are people who have nowhere to go and punishing them for that is unconscionable.
Ephraim 08:47 on 2021-01-08 Permalink
It’s a problem without an easy solution, for many different reasons. We need rooming house… it’s a type of housing that we have slowly moved away from and yet is specifically needed by a portion of the population. And that being said, the people who run rooming houses need more powers than you would normally give a landlord. But we have impacted the stock of rooming house by action and inaction.
For example, allowing people to convert residential housing to commercial housing with little intervention. An apartment used for AirBnB purposes is a commercial housing unit but is taxed at a residential rate in a zoned residential area and we have done very little to actually rectify the situation tax wise. — In order for a place to be zoned residential, the owner/tenant should be required to be resident, if they aren’t, the tax rate should be commercial. Rooming house generally have the landlord or superintendent on premises. In fact, they don’t function well without a resident caretaker, so tax-wise, we need to define this type of housing and put lower tax rates on it.
We also have the problem of allowing charities to decide and run shelters, with dubious purposes. Sure, we have some that are great, non-discriminatory. Some are using this to proselyte to people who are at their most vulnerable…. intent matters. And most of the charities want to do the most they can do with limited resources, so they want the easiest to deal with… so no wet shelters (for those who aren’t sober.)
We also need to realize that not everyone wants our help. And that we don’t know how to help everyone. And maybe it’s time to recognize that we can’t do it all. For a long time I have said that I don’t really know if the city is really the right people to run apartment buildings. Their costs are high! It’s expensive to do upkeep if you have to hire unionized employees for everything and inefficient ones. Maybe it’s better if we subsidize rather than actual run low-cost housing. But again, not something that I have actual numbers or research (and even the research is sketchy.)
The same solutions to a problem don’t work for everyone. Never mind the fact that even if we do find a solution, we still have Pareto’s principle in play… 80% of a problem can be solved easily, doesn’t mean it will be easy to solve the last 20% of the problem.
Cadichon 09:26 on 2021-01-08 Permalink
@ Ephraim, the City doesn’t run apartment buildings. Some of the older social housing stock is run by paramunicipal agency (Office municipal, SHDM). Almost all of the newer stock (post 1996) is owned by coop or non-profit.
Ephraim 12:08 on 2021-01-08 Permalink
That’s the name I’m looking for the SHDM. The problem with the words “non-profit” is that it doesn’t mean they run it at the best and lowest costs, it means that there is no money left at the end of the year. Which means that they make sure there is no money left over. But you still need to watch them like a hawk… and they can still use the most expensive people to do things. To do the best, you need to have people who are benevolent…. look at Tourisme Montreal, supposed to be non-profit… and they just pad their salaries to ensure that there is no money left at the end of the year and give out golden parachutes for doing SFA.
But the point here is that there are commercial operators, like REITs who need to make a profit, who have entire teams dedicated to the maintenance of their buildings and running them efficiently for a profit. It may mean that in the long run that you can get more apartments, more efficiently by paying a subsidy.
Bill Binns 13:08 on 2021-01-08 Permalink
@David256 – You have to remember that the rather large network of “community groups” that get money from the city, province and feds to provide various services to people who self identify as “homeless” is an industry. These groups have little interest in reducing actual homelessness and putting themselves out of business. The real money is in facilitating urban camping. Through relentless innovation the industry has invented a whole new line of business, creating shelters with open bars and inventing heroin lounges. The industry’s current marketing campaigns make the case that we need, many, many more of both types of facilities.
Go back and read the articles regarding the so called “homeless census” done in previous years. The numbers were always around 3k but every advocate organization interviewed said or implied that there were many more that went uncounted. There were also numerous attempts to move the goalposts and change what the term “homeless” meant. Did you know that if you are sleeping on a buddie’s couch that you are homeless? Even if you are worried about paying your rent next month you may be counted as homeless. Using this definition, I have apparently been homeless for decades of my life.
Cadichon 13:23 on 2021-01-08 Permalink
@ Ephraim, some non-profits are actually quite large, owning thousands of units. They too, like REITs, have entire teams dedicated to maintenance and management. I don’t see why they wouldn’t be cost effective. Them being non-profit means that even after subsidies stop, apartments stay affordable.
Ephraim 14:59 on 2021-01-08 Permalink
@Cadichon – As I said, IF they are benevolent. But there are a lot of corrupt not-for-profits as well… as I pointed out, Tourisme Montreal is the one that comes to mind. The top management gets big bonuses to make sure that they don’t make a profit. (They gave one CEO a golden parachute of over half a million dollars… from a non-profit, that collects 3.5% on every hotel room in Montreal.) And of course, you have to question who gets the contracts… kick-backs. We all know about the corruption levels in this province.
I’m not saying that they are, I’m just saying that the possibility is there. It’s a lot harder with publicly traded for-profit corporations, since they have to have audited balance sheets. Again, they too can have corruption, but it’s a lot harder. Looking at CAPREIT at the moment, they have apartments available in different sizes. These companies could also afford to build larger… for example, build 100 apartments and make 20 available for social housing. And the added advantage of not creating a “ghetto”.
But we also need to look at WHAT we build. As I have pointed out before, these buildings need to be LEED certified with minimum overhead for maintenance and upkeep. Geothermal for heating and cooling, etc. It’s one of the reasons that converting old buildings into social housing isn’t the best idea, because they often have a lot of costs associated with their upkeep, conversion, heating, etc.
david266 01:16 on 2021-01-09 Permalink
Myles raises a problem that Ephraim exactly answers. It’s not a quick solution, but we need to legalize and even incentivize private rooming or “flop” houses, which will be a crucial part of the solution. Rooms by the day, week or month, organized for people on the down side of advantage.
Bill – the poverty industry is a big problem, but I don’t really think that’s what’s going on, per se. The homeless industry actually makes more money from “in-patient” solutions like, for instance, the drug use centers. There’s something else going on right now that’s much more ideological and strange on the tents and other things.
Jack 12:58 on 2021-01-09 Permalink
Christopher Curtis is a great writer.