Evicting homeless campers from 3 Montreal parks will distance them from services, advocate says

Eddy Huard and his wife have been pitching a tent in Montreal's Cabot Square for some time now.

They are homeless and needed a place to sleep, but weren't interested in going to a shelter.

They were forced to move out on Monday as Montreal — which has been tolerating park camping during the pandemic — cracks down on tenting in three public spaces due to disruptive behaviour.

"I guess the people gotta fend for themselves," he said. "That's what it seems like. That's what I had to do."

Moving out of Cabot Square will push Huard further away from the very service that drew tenters there in the first place, said David Chapman of Resilience Montreal, a day shelter that has been offering a range of services in the downtown plaza all spring.

The city set up handwashing stations and temporary furniture there while Resilience Montreal distributed food, information and counselling to the homeless that came seeking help.

Eventually, homeless people began setting up tents of their own, Chapman said, and the city ultimately turned a blind eye to the practice, even though it's normally prohibited in Montreal parks.

Now, those who have been camping in the three parks will have to look for someplace else to sleep, Chapman said.

"They will be looking for hidden places in small wooded areas where they can be out of sight, out of mind, and that's where they're gonna put their tents up," he said. "And you ask yourself, is that really safer?"

Tenting still tolerated in all other parks, city says

Montreal's homeless commissioner, Serge Lareault, said police will continue to tolerate tenting in green spaces as long as it is not in the three specific parks where a series of "scary" incidents have worried authorities.

Those three parks are Cabot Square, Place Émilie-Gamelin, and Morgan Park in Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. People there were asked to find somewhere else to sleep, he said.

There are alternatives — Lareault pointed out more than 700 beds are available at 11 different locations.

Those beds are in addition to the homeless shelters already in operation across Montreal, but not everyone is aware or interested in sleeping in shelters.

For those looking to spend the night in parks, he said, police are asking people to pack up in the morning so members of the public can use the park during the day.

"Until now, it's working very well, except for some groups in the three parks where police wanted to change some things," said Lareault. 

"But for the rest of the city, I want to be clear about that, we still keep the same tolerance."