Old Brewery Mission

By Dan Laxer
The Suburban

Last week, a warming station in the city’s Ville Marie borough was shut down, because authorities said that it wasn’t cold enough outside to keep it open.

The city-run shelter, operated out of the Stanley Street YMCA, is usually open in the urgent event of frigid temperatures below -27 degrees with wind chill factored in. It was warmer than that when the city initially opened the shelter. But then they shut it down on the 9th, when the overnight temperature was -13.

The shelter was originally meant to accommodate 50 people, but the city increased capacity due to the extreme cold. Between last December 21, when the shelter opened, until its closure, nearly 1,300 people had been through its doors.

There are other places for homeless Montrealers to go, including Welcome Hall Mission, the Old Brewery Mission, the EMMIS shelter in Old Montreal, Resilience Montreal, and others. But, like hospitals, many of them are at overcapacity. In fact, hospitals report that some homeless have been seeking shelter from the cold in emergency rooms, adding to their already acute overcrowding problem.

Since the warming centre on Stanley is open only in extreme weather conditions, closing it when the weather turns milder is considered normal. However, as Sam Watts, CEO and Executive Director of Welcome Hall Mission, tells The Suburban, that is beside the point. “Warming centres are not a suitable response to a humanitarian crisis. Tents aren’t either.”

Watts says the City of Montreal is following an outmoded model of care for its disadvantaged and disconnected citizens. “The disjointed, seasonal, temporary patches that we’ve come to accept need to be replaced by a well-crafted strategy that is people-centred.” That requires a combined effort of all levels of government, along with the healthcare system, and those who provide frontline care for those in need.

Watts outlines a three-pronged solution to the current trend, which includes prevention, rethinking the way care is provided in the community, and ensuring that housing is viewed “as a fundamental building block of human health,” with policies to ensure everyone has a place to call home.

The weather has been mild the last couple of weeks, but Montreal may see overnight windchill factors of at least -26 before the end of the month. The city has not indicated whether the YMCA shelter could be reopened if the need arises. But in an email to The Suburban spokesperson Guillaume Rivest stated “risk is also assessed on the basis of field data and other emergency resources available to people experiencing homelessness.” n