City giving $1.7 million to more than 40 groups that aid homeless residents
The city of Montreal will give more than $1.7 million to community organizations that provide services to homeless people.
More than 40 community organizations will receive the funding immediately.
The groups include Dopamine and L’Anonyme, which provide services to people who use drugs, and organizations that provide food, shelter and a range of other services, like The Open Door and CAP St-Barnabé.
CAP St-Barnabé director Patricia Gagné said her group recently lost a major donor, and the funding from the city comes just in time. The organization plans to use the money to help pay intervention workers.
“We can breathe a little bit,” said Marc Gagné, president of the CAP St-Barnabé board of directors. “We were worrying, and this helps us.”
The $1.7 million brings the city ’s total budget for homelessness programs to $2.8 million in 2018, according to Rosannie Filato, the Villeray city council member responsible for social and community development.
Funding these groups is part of the city’s 2018–2020 plan to fight homelessness. Filato said one of the aims of the announced funding is to help homeless people who belong to specific groups, such as women and youth.
“Usually it’s hidden homelessness, it’s not as visible as the others,” Filato said.
For example, rather than staying in shelters, homeless youth often stay at the homes of friends.
“We can’t really count them in our numbers, so we have to find innovative ways of helping them, and that’s what our community-based groups do,” Filato said.
Filato the city is also working to develop 950 units of social and community housing for people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, to be completed within the next four years.