Metro homelessness and its miseries

La Presse’s Maxime Bergeron joined a pair of special STM constables on a visit to the metro stations where homelessness and drug use are most visible. He also explains a change in how neighbourhood police now respond to metro issues on their patch.

Alongside these pieces is another item by Henri Ouellette‑Vézina about the need for more psychosocial resources to help those with mental troubles or drug dependence or both.

But the problem also comes down to keeping the metro system clean and safe for users, or ridership will continue to fall.

(On thinking about the neighbourhood police angle, I’d be curious to know how much downtown policing is now devoted to issues in the metro, since seven of the eight most troubled stations are in Ville‑Marie.)