Open letter published in Le Journal de Montréal. Read the open letter online
SOURCE : Le Journal de Montréal
The situation on the streets of Montreal is striking. Camps are spreading, and dismantling is increasing at the same pace. Citizen complaints are on the rise, while long-term solutions remain elusive.
Community organizations are on the front line. But the real question remains: what are we really doing, as a community, to help people in very precarious situations?
OCTRs (outreach street work community organizations), are deploying considerable efforts to respond to a crisis that exceeds available resources. Multiple resuscitations have become part of our daily routine. Our teams cannot manage the overdose and housing crises alone, nor the tensions of social cohabitation. Outreach Street workers are determined and creative in the face of increasing demands and more complex realities and needs, in a context where referrals to saturated resources are increasingly difficult.
A false solution
In addition to the lack of support and structuring actions from the various levels of government, our ability to act is undermined by political decisions and budget cuts. In particular, the Mobile Social Mediation and Intervention Team, which was deployed to ease tensions in the public space, is ultimately being used to move people experiencing homelessness from one place to another, without offering any real long-term support.
As outreach street workers, we build relationships of trust with marginalized people, accompanying them in their daily lives, in their living environments, at their pace. The multiplication of outreach approaches and field workers is detrimental to our safety, to the bonds we build, and more generally to the positive impact of our presence in the lives of the people we accompany.
We are sorry to see that the homelessness crisis has become more of an electoral issue than a human rights issue; homelessness as a problem to be instrumentalized rather than solved. Announcements multiply while action is slow in coming.
Citizens have every right to feel helpless and powerless. Who can blame a mother for worrying about her children when camps appear near her home? Fear and public guilt are fed by the city and distressing media coverage. We need to stop treating homelessness as a simple problem of public nuisance management. It's time to recognize the urgent humanitarian crisis behind these situations.
A call to action
We need a comprehensive action plan, co-constructed with elected officials and communities. Outreach Street Workers are not firefighters, and collectively we can no longer content ourselves with putting out fire after fire, crisis after crisis. It's no longer enough to discuss the symptoms - the encampments, the overdoses, the tensions - we need to tackle the root causes: the lack of emergency accommodation and social housing, the explosion in contaminated substances and the lack of support for people in precarious situations.
As long as genuine structural solutions are not put in place, we will continue to chase after insufficient temporary solutions with no lasting impact.
We call on the City of Montreal to assume its responsibilities with regard to the current social crisis. We call for a constructive dialogue with all the players involved to develop lasting solutions and a coherent interdepartmental action plan that takes account of the realities on the ground. We call for the OCTRs to be upgraded with adequate, mission-based funding, and for increased and recurrent funding to be allocated to organizations engaged in the fight against this social crisis. Finally, we call on the city to stop multiplying proximity approaches, in favor of recognizing the 40-year experience of outreach street work.
Fear and powerlessness must no longer dictate our reactions. Let's build a safer, more cohesive community through concrete action, political will and collective mobilization. Let's take action in the face of today's crises, and commit ourselves now to preventing tomorrow's.
Montreal delegation of the Regroupement des organismes communautaires québécois pour le travail de rue (ROCQTR)
Tania Charron, executive director, Action Jeunesse de l’Ouest-de-l’Île
Joelle McNeil Paquet, executive director, L’Antre-Jeunes de Mercier-Est
Maxime Bonneau, executive director, PACT de rue
Martin Pagé, executive director, Dopamine
Line St-Amour, executive director, Plein Milieu
René Obregon-Ida, director, Rue Action Prévention
Alexandra Pontbriand, assistant director, Spectre de rue
Cédric Cervia, assistant director, Travail de Rue – Action communautaire
Supported by the Réseau d’aide aux personnes seules et itinérantes à Montréal (RAPSIM)
