Montreal city councillors table motion to declare state of emergency on homelessness

As the biting cold of winter looms in Montreal, a pair of independent city councillors are asking the city to vote in favour of a motion declaring a state of emergency on homelessness.

The motion tabled for Monday calls on the city to usher in a host of measures including mobilizing "all necessary resources to ensure all people experiencing homelessness can be housed" and requisitioning private accommodation spaces to shelter the unhoused before winter.

It also calls for allocating more resources to shelters as well as requesting additional funds from Quebec City and Ottawa to offset some of the costs.

"We feel that we've reached a really critical point," Craig Sauvé, one of the councillors behind the motion, said in an interview.

"There's an urgency to make sure we have enough beds and enough places and shelters to keep people alive and housed."

Serge Sasseville, the other city councillor, said different levels of government are "constantly blaming each other when it comes to homelessness."

"But now it's the time for Montreal to show leadership, act and protect our citizens," he said. 

Sasseville said the Quebec government has been "grossly incompetent" and that the City of Montreal has offered more words than actions in tackling the problem.

Citing the exceptional powers listed in the Act Respecting Civil Protection to Promote Disaster Resilience, Sauvé said declaring a state of emergency would not be without precedent, since the city requisitioned shelter spaces when it declared an emergency during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The act states that municipalities facing a present or imminent disaster can declare a state of emergency for a duration of 10 days "if normal operating rules do not make it possible to take the immediate actions required to protect human life."

City says other measures can be deployed instead

Sauvé said the emergency can easily be renewed, and that like homelessness, the COVID-19 pandemic did not have a foreseeable end when an emergency was first declared.

The regional health authority that keeps track of shelter spaces in Montreal said the city's shelters currently provide 1,835 spaces — over 100 more spaces available than during the same period last year.

The goal, the health authority said, is to reach 2,102 spaces by December. It also said Montreal's shelters have nearly all reached maximum capacity.

A City of Montreal spokesperson responded in a written statement that "there are several other measures that can be deployed rather than using this tool at this time," adding the city is prepared to build more modular housing units.

"The city has never declared a state of emergency for homelessness," the spokesperson said.

Earlier in November, Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante called on the governments of Quebec and Canada to finalize a deal to free up what she said is $100 million promised to help provide shelter and other support to the province's homeless population.

In a written statement, Quebec's Health and Social Services Ministry responded to allegations that the province isn't stepping up, saying it has increased funds to address the province's homelessness crisis, which it said now totals almost $410 million over five years.

As for the $100 million Montreal has called for, the ministry said discussions are still underway.

Advocates support motion

James Hughes, president and CEO of Old Brewery Mission, said he would support the emergency declaration.

David Chapman, executive director of Resilience Montreal, said declaring a state of emergency may help community groups like his own to put a roof over more people's heads.

"If you do not have accessible, warm, safe places for the unhoused to be going into winter, the end result is going to be that you're going to have a significant increase in homeless death," he said, explaining that a significant rise in fentanyl use is killing a growing number of unhoused people in the city.

However, Chapman pointed out that even if Montreal votes in favour of the motion, residents are often quick to reject homeless shelters and subsidized housing units being added to their own neighbourhoods.

If Montreal did back the motion, it would join a growing list of cities across Canada that have declared a state of emergency in recent years.

In January, Edmonton passed a motion declaring a homelessness and housing emergency. In Ontario, Toronto and Hamilton declared their own states of emergency in the spring of 2023.