Homeless battle ‘social apathy’
Are getting older and frailer and yet, advocates say, there’s a ‘collective social apathy’ toward them
As soaring rents, limited housing availability and gentrification put the squeeze on Montrealers in need, local activists say responsible citizenship could help reduce homelessness in the city, Peggy Curran writes.
A70-year-old man who volunteers at Share the Warmth lost his apartment recently. So he moved into his truck.
“He has issues,” said Michèle Chappaz, who oversees communications and fundraising at the Point-StCharles food bank and community centre, which has been helping him to find somewhere to live.
“When someone needed a place last summer, we had the whole community on the lookout for a place that would accept someone who doesn’t necessarily look like you and me,” Chappaz said. “People have prejudices in housing about people with mentalhealth issues or disabilities. ‘Will he pay? Will he be clean?’ There are worries. We want to assuage those fears.”
Soaring rents and limited availability are a growing problem for Montrealers on fixed incomes. Meanwhile, gentrification of traditional working-class neighbourhoods such as Point-StCharles, St-Henri, Verdun and Hochelaga-Maisonneuve has put the squeeze on homeowners, particularly pensioners, who’ve seen the value of their properties skyrocket — on paper.
“If you are a low-income homeowner here, you now pay really high taxes because they have been developing the area,” Chappaz said. “It is tempting for people to want to sell. But where will they end up?”
She said there simply aren’t enough social-housing units for the people who need them.
“A lot of families are moving in with one another,” said Share the Warmth’s Debbie Gunn. She lives in Verdun, where it’s no longer unusual to pay $800 for a two-bedroom walk-up.
Predictably, those who don’t fit a landlord’s definition of a conventional tenant — quiet, with a job and a steady income — have the most trouble finding shelter.
“Our guys are not really in the condo market right now, so that means a big chunk of downtown is now off the charts,” said Alain Spitzer, executive director at the St. James Drop-In Centre.
Of the centre’s 230 regular visitors, Spitzer said three out of four either have an apartment or live in supervised housing. The rest either spend most nights in a shelter or sleeping outside.
All have been homeless, with some only recently off the streets — and still battling the demons that got them there, such as mental illness and addictions. “I don’t want to put them in a horrible environment where there is lots of temptation and lots of other people who are struggling,” Spitzer said.
“What we could find for $350 10 years ago is now in the $550s. It is very tricky. And even when we find potential places, it is hard to convince the landlords that it is a good fit. They are apprehensive, they’ve had trouble. I think it is hard to be a landlord.”
During the past several decades, there has been a huge shift from hospitalization of people with mental illness toward outpatient treatment and anti-psychotic medications. But concerns are often raised — by mental-health professionals, community workers, police and patients’ families — about the implications of moving people from beds to the sidewalk.
“If you ask people who have been working with the homeless over the last 30 years to compare then to now, it is bewildering how many people who are homeless have severe mental illnesses. And that’s not an accident. That is a direct reflection of the shift in the way we treat people,” Spitzer said.
“Having them in the community is wonderful, but you need some pretty significant support and follow-up for that to be successful. We have gone from one extreme to the other without really covering our bases.”
Spitzer said boosting the amount of low-cost or supervised housing alone won’t solve the problem for people who don’t easily fit into mainstream society.
“The kind of quasi-supervised housing that is avail- able has so many rules — such as no drinking or no use of drugs. For folks who have been on the street for a long time, it is completely unreasonable to think that any of these people are ever going to access that type of building.”
And Spitzer isn’t convinced group residences are always the best way to go. “You can put 100 people who are struggling in one building. That’s kind of a recipe for so many not good things.”
Of the Montreal shelters that offer longer-term housing to people trying to get off the street, Spitzer believes only one, Chambreclerc, allows leeway on alcohol consumption within the confines of individual studios.
“There are lots of great places out there that would love to let our guys in, but they have such strict rules. … Even if you said OK, we will get them in, they won’t last the week.”
He sees a growing need as the city’s homeless population gets older and frailer.
“Years ago, people lived on the street until they were 50 and then they would die. But we are all living longer, including them. And as they get older, they struggle with all of the illnesses that we all suffer with as we get older.
“Where are they supposed to stay — in a shelter? People who work there have no expertise with that. Nor is it their role to keep old people, whatever the issue — lack of mobility, cognitive issues, diabetes. It’s not a hospital or long-term-care facility.”
Experience at the drop-in centre has shown Spitzer many people who have been living on the street, or who suffer from mental illness, want to work. They can be incredibly productive — provided they, and their wouldbe employers, are realistic.
“The reality is that for most folks who are struggling, they are probably not going to have a job as an executive, with a big house, a family and a couple of dogs. That’s fantasyland.
“But sometimes we don’t need to expect the extraordinary. We just need to expect the ordinary,” Spitzer said.
“It’s hard. Either you are homeless and you are not working, or there’s an expectation that you can work and there’s no issues. There aren’t many people for whom that’s possible.”
As a result, he said most homeless people who re-enter the workforce do so through work grants at community organizations.
“We have folks here who have been unemployed for 50 years, who were on the street. Today, they are not working full time. But they are working part-time preparing meals in the kitchen. And they are not on the street any more. Is that not an amazing victory?”
Spitzer thinks there’s a piece missing from efforts to address the problems of disenfranchised Montrealers — responsible citizenship.
“I think the government could give every dime they have in taxes and that would not resolve everything,” he said. “There is a collective social apathy, where people in general don’t see it as their responsibility to take care of other people because they pay taxes. And that’s nonsense.
“Just paying taxes doesn’t do it. The guys who are homeless or living in low-cost housing are our neighbours. And we did care for our neighbours not so long ago.
“It is easy to care for your family and friends. That’s expected. It’s a given. Stretch yourself a bit.”