The Gazette has reports Wednesday about the homeless shelter in St‑Henri making an unsettling neighbour to a school and a park, and also about homeless people continuing to cause difficulties in Chinatown. But if you read news from elsewhere you’ll see that many other cities have the same issues – the same social stresses, the same drugs, the same growing numbers of people unable to cope – and the same inability to find solutions.
Updates from May, 2024 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Good news, everybody! The city’s power grid is deteriorating and it’s harder and harder to repair. We should all have more chances to try out our solar panels, camping lanterns and candles.
carswell
Dunno about now but back in the days of Great Whale, various environmental organizations opposed to the project, including the Sierra Club, claimed that if Hydro upgraded Montreal’s electric power distribution system, the efficiency gains would save more power than Great Whale would produce. AFAIK, Hydro never disproved those claims.
For politicians and executives, building dams in pristine remote areas is a lot sexier than upgrading the power grid in densely populated cities.
Meezly
We live in a densely populated neighbourhood and our power suddenly went out without warning just after 1pm. It wasn’t related to weather as it was a nice day, so I did a bit of gardening. Thankfully it only lasted for about 20 minutes.
Ian
Mine went out yesterday in Mile End west of Parc for about 10 minutes around 1:20pm but I figured it was because of one of the many local construction/ roadwork projects. It happens pretty regularly.
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Kate
Both TVA and CTV emphasize that a man who was shot Wednesday afternoon in NDG was hit near daycare centres (two in CTV’s account, three in TVA’s).
Nicholas
TVA at the top says within 50 metres of three daycares, but then lower down says a stone’s through from two adjacent daycares and 60 metres from a third. In the end it probably depends on the exact location, but also it doesn’t matter because bullets can travel more than 60 metres and as they say kids walk around the neighbourhood.
JP
Yeah, most daycares take kids for walks around the neighborhood and to local parks daily. My niece’s daycare takes them for walks everyday and they spend most of the day outdoors when it’s good weather. If I were the daycare admin or a parent in one of those garderies I would have safety concerns.
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Kate
The West Island’s only homeless shelter is closing and there’s no replacement. The residents are being given a tent and a blanket.
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Kate
Police stopped a Black woman driving her car in Little Burgundy last month and demanded she remove her car tints on the spot – tints she had had for five years. Apparently police can ask that they be removed, but usually it’s a warning, not a demand for immediate action. Three police cars showed up for this non‑incident. The CityNews version adds a spin: one officer handed the woman a knife, but she realized how it might look wielding a possible weapon in the presence of police, so handed it back. Fo Niemi’s CRARR is going to help her file formal complaints.
I was walking along Jarry yesterday when several police cruisers screamed past and I wondered what was up. Little did I know it might have been a Black woman with tinted car windows.
Ian
Seems pretty obviously egregious and overblown, especially with a cruiser cluster.
That’s some nice police work, Lou
/simpsons
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Kate
Public transit is facing a five‑year slump with no new money and a big deficit.
The Gazette has a gloomy piece citing an expert saying our transit system is in a death spiral. (Actually, the expert says “downward spiral” but “death” makes for a more clickbaity headline.)
In tangential news, there’s a report Wednesday of an attack on a woman by three teenage girls in February in an STM bus, and the failure of the STM to provide video evidence. Fo Niemi is cited here so the story may have a racial aspect, although it isn’t spelled out.
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Kate
Some in St-Henri may be getting their “I told you so” moment now, as the Maison Benoît‑Labre day shelter and drug consumption facility proves to be a difficult neighbour to a school and a park.
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