Residents of Ville-Marie underpass encampment must leave, Quebec Appeal Court rules

The Quebec Court of Appeal has ruled the 20 or so people living beneath the Ville-Marie expressway in downtown Montreal won't be able to stay there until July 15, as their lawyers had requested.

Justice Guy Cournoyer rejected their appeal of a Quebec Superior Court decision earlier this spring which gave residents until June 15 to move, to allow for repairs to the expressway. 

The group was initially asked to leave last November, with two weeks' notice.

Following community outcry, the eviction date was moved to March, which is when the Mobile Legal Clinic first filed court documents asking for the eviction date to be pushed back to July 15. The clinic also asked for the Transport Ministry to come up with a plan to find homes for the residents. 

The eviction was then scheduled for April 12, then delayed by 10 days. At the end of April, the Quebec Superior Court renewed the legal clinic's request for an injunction for another seven weeks. 

On June 6, Quebec Superior Court Justice Pierre Nolet refused to renew the injunction once more, saying there were resources available to the members of the tent community which they were choosing to ignore.

Nolet also said public safety was at stake, with repairs needed to the highway.

Cournoyer upheld those decisions. He said the deteriorating state of the highway not only presented a risk to commuters driving on it, but to the residents living below it, as well. 

Advocates for the community have said they need more time to help its people find housing. 

David Chapman, the executive director of Resilience Montreal, a group that is helping those still in tents to find long-term housing, says though living arrangements have been made for half the group, the organization needs more time to make sure everyone is relocated. 

"It doesn't happen, say, in a week's time that all of a sudden you go from having sparse documentation to entering a subsidized apartment," said Chapman.

He and Nakuset, the executive director of the Native Women's Shelter of Montreal, have said the group is tight knit and they help each other out. 

"It's really hard to move into spaces where there is a sense of community, a sense of understanding, culturally appropriate services," said Nakuset.