TENT CITY PULLING UP STAKES
Homeless people ordered to leave
Homeless people who have been living in a small tent city that emerged on Notre Dame St. E. during the pandemic have been ordered to leave by the Montreal fire department.
According to a statement by the city of Montreal, the emergency evacuation order was issued following a fire in one of the tents on Saturday.
“The interim director of the Montreal fire department and the co-ordinator of civil security for the Montreal agglomeration, Richard Liebmann, ordered the emergency evacuation of the camp on Notre-dame St., located on land owned by Transport Quebec,” the statement read. “In fact, following several fires and faced with numerous hazards on the site, including a lot of inflammable material, (Liebmann) concluded that the security of the occupants is severely threatened and that he had to act without delay.”
While the statement appeared to be an ultimatum, Montreal police spokesperson Jean-pierre Brabant, who was on the scene Sunday afternoon, said police officers and firefighters who have spoken to the occupants of the tents are taking “a very human approach.”
“We are asking them to leave. There will be no eviction (on Sunday). There are four police officers doing this and we have had communication with most of the people involved in the past. As we have done before, we are offering them transport to another location, like (the Hotel Place Dupuis),” Brabant said.
The city has also offered occupants of the tents shelter at a former YMCA in the Mercier-hochelaga-maisonneuve borough.
Some of the homeless who have been living in the tents for weeks, if not months, have said they prefer the option of living in a tent on Notre-dame, as opposed to a homeless shelter, out of a fear of contracting COVID-19.
The city said that, through its previous efforts, the number of tents at the site was reduced from 123, at the peak, to 58 before the order was issued. Although no one was injured when a tent was completely destroyed by a fire on Saturday, the situation “could have been tragic,” the city stated. The fire is believed to have been started by a candle.
“The concern is that other stronger materials will be used in the future to provide heat,” Brabant said.
Sébestien Des Meules, a homeless man who lived in one of the tents for four days, said the Montreal police and firefighters asked him to leave but also offered him help.
“They told me to sleep in another part of the city. They also said they had intervenors who could arrange transport to relocate me or something similar to that,” he said, adding he will agree with the order.
“It isn't complicated to me. We have to change location. This is near a residential sector.”
He said he moved into one of the tents after being homeless for the
past two months. He also said the few nights he spent in a tent were not that bad, in terms of the weather, when compared with sleeping inside the entrance to a bank next to ATMS.
“It is better to know where you are sleeping instead of having to look for a place to sleep every night,” he said.
When asked if the order bothered him, Des Meules replied: “C'est la vie.” He also said he planned to look for a friend he lost contact with about a month ago. He said he hoped the friend now has an
apartment where he could crash.
Québec solidaire MNA Alexandre Leduc, who represents the Hochelaga-maisonneuve riding, called for increased social housing in Montreal to avoid seeing similar camp sites pop up in the future.
“When (the people who camped out on Notre-dame St. E.) are dispersed to places that are less visible, will they be more secure,” Leduc said in a statement. “I doubt it. There are other camp sites of its kind that are much smaller elsewhere in Montreal.”