Guy-Favreau shelter to move to Verdun
The homeless shelter closing at Guy‑Favreau is to move to Verdun into a disused home for the elderly, but they’ve got 85 people to house, and this building only has room for 50.
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Kate
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MarcG 09:55 on 2023-10-20 Permalink
Strange that when the city bought the building they said it was to create 96 affordable housing units but now there’s only room for 50?
Kate 10:56 on 2023-10-20 Permalink
The journalist should have asked about that. It’s quite a discrepancy.
I wonder whether the extra space will be devoted to administrative and operational needs.
DavidH 13:38 on 2023-10-20 Permalink
That 85 person capacity at Guy-Favreau is for 65 beds and 20 sitting people according to the article. I wonder how much of that projected capacity of 50 is actual beds.
The ‘up to 96 affordable housings’ planned was probably exaggerated to make the former project look better. They had 99 individual rooms in the old building and have to add a private bathroom and kitchen to every final unit. Hard to imagine that can be done by sacrificing the equivalent of only 3 rooms and communal space. The new shelter does not need individual kitchens though, so that reduction is strange.
The real question is how does a refuge outside of downtown actually meet the needs of the current clientele. The new center will likely be full, but will it be by the people currently at Guy-Favreau? Downtown and Verdun do not have the same appeal. The metro is next door but no food courts, cafes, crowds, etc..
nau 14:09 on 2023-10-20 Permalink
I read that article as saying that the city originally bought the building to convert it to up to 96 units of affordable housing. Not having found anywhere else to accommodate the 85 people from the shelter, the city has turned to this building in Verdun to shelter at least 50 of them. Presumably this is not a permanent vocation for the building as apparently the city still plans to convert the building to “several dozen” units of affordable housing. Perhaps in the building’s current state, they figure that providing shelter for 50 is the best they can do given how soon the other shelter is closing. It may well be that large portions of the building are not in a habitable state.
It does seem an odd locale for a shelter. I’m inferring that for the city this move isn’t so much about does this location meet all the needs of the shelter’s clientele but rather is it better than closing the current shelter and having nowhere else for these people to shelter at all. Better in that building than on the street, basically.