Homeless shelter worries Rosemont residents
A plan to convert a disused Rosemont church into a shelter for the homeless – this was already reported in January – is said to be worrying residents because it’s near schools and daycares.
Tell me, where would you put such a facility in town and not be within range of a school or daycare? There are children and children’s services distributed throughout the city, just as there are homeless people. Unless you set aside a piece of fenced land away from residential areas and create a kind of concentration camp, the homeless will have to be helped somewhere near you.
JaneyB 08:07 on 2024-05-27 Permalink
Repurposing neighbourhood buildings will not be popular. The homeless are not equally distributed throughout the city; they are not in the suburbs for instance. Maybe somewhere on Cote de Liesse or other industrial-zoned areas could work. Main streets like Pie IX might work though the homeless who are also addicts would then become a driving hazard. Right now, many are living in camps under the raised highways. That can’t be good for them. Others rotate through the prison system. A more remote /industrial park setting is likely less bad than all of the above.
Kate 09:04 on 2024-05-27 Permalink
JaneyB, there’s homelessness in the West Island, as was reported earlier this year. Maybe not in Senneville, but it’s there.
If you put a facility in an industrial zone, how will people know it exists, and how would they get there? Somebody with no car or bus pass, poor physical and mental health, bad shoes, isn’t going to trek from downtown Montreal to somewhere near the end of the island on foot. You have to put facilities where the need is.
jeather 10:56 on 2024-05-27 Permalink
A lot of the industrial zones have really limited access — it’s not safe walking, buses are set up on work shift schedules, there’s little access to food or other things.
Ian 11:52 on 2024-05-27 Permalink
Even VSL is hard to get to for work shifts, let alone outside working hours, let alone a “real” industrial zone.
For example, Villeray and Chambord to Andalos on Lebeau is about an hour by transit outside rush hour. It’s only an hour and a half to walk, or 22 minutes by bike. In the winter the buses are regularly cancelled or up to a half hour late.
Now if you put that by Moisson Montreal it’s still only an hour or so by transit but an hour by bike and almost 2 hours on foot. Unless people get dropped there by a shuttle bus or the cops there’s no way anyone will ever bother to go that far even at this time of year when the weather won’t kill you.
carswell 12:50 on 2024-05-27 Permalink
When it was created five and a half years ago, the SQDC had plans to open 200 stores across the province, most of them in the Montreal area. The then-Liberal government instituted rules governing store placement: 250 m from “vulnerable” populations (elementary and high schools, daycare centres, etc.), except in the city, where, due primarily to the large number of schools and daycares, the distance was reduced to 150 m.
When the cannabis-hating CAQ took over, they immediately eliminated the exception. This proved — and from what I hear, continues to prove — to be a headache for the government corporation. Plans and even leases for stores had to be cancelled, the most notable example being the store slated to open on Ste-Catherine just east of the UQAM campus (near the McDo if memory serves). The result? Fewer than half the number of metro-area stores as was originally planned and an effective cap of 100 on the number of stores province-wide, which is where we are today. And that “UQAM” store? Now in the shadow of the Jacques Cartier bridge, which shows what the 250 m rule means in urban settings.
Cohabitation is a requirement in a big city. And shuffling the homeless to industrial areas — ugly, hard to access (doubly so for those not using public transit), far from necessary services, opportunities for socializing and green spaces — is a non-starter. It’s also prone to out of sight, out of mind, a morally indefensible stance as well as one that does nothing to address the root of the problem.
Kate 13:05 on 2024-05-27 Permalink
That CAQ limit is bogus. Nobody gets into an SQDC without showing ID at the door. And the store is not allowed to put anything attractive in the window. Kids wouldn’t want to go in, and wouldn’t be allowed in if they tried.