Homeless man freezes to death
A homeless man froze to death overnight in a camp in what La Presse describes as a wooded area between St‑Jacques and autoroute 20 in lower NDG.
Update to add some text from Peter McQueen on Facebook:
“We were heartbroken to learn of the death of Michaël, a 74-year-old man who had been living in a makeshift shelter in the Falaise St-Jacques for over a decade. […] He was well known in the borough and was regularly visited by patrol officers from station 9, police officers from the Équipe mobile de référence et d’intervention en itinérance (EMRII), a nurse from CIUSSS du Centre Sud de l’Île de Montréal and Multicaf. He always wanted to remain in his shelter, where he was found dead last night by a patroller who came to inquire about his condition.”
Updating again to add this CTV piece about the man and his longtime encampment in that spot.
dwgs 10:14 on 2022-01-13 Permalink
He lived in that spot for closer to twenty years. My eldest, who is now 19, was babysat by a woman who lived a block away when he was a babe and I noticed the guy’s encampment way back then.
Meezly 11:56 on 2022-01-15 Permalink
I just read more about this man. He seemed more of an urban hermit who was voluntarily and self-sufficiently ‘homeless’ and had been trying to protect that green space. Normally, during extreme cold he’d spend the night at the nearby 24hr McD’s or bowling alley reading a book. Because of the lockdown, these places were unavailable to him.