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ahuntsic residents are mobilizing against montreal's plan to open a homeless shelter
they say city hall refused to consult the community beforehand despite concerns that the shelter is near a daycare and several schools.
jul 13 2024
3 minute read
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residents of ahuntsic are mobilizing against the city’s plan to open a 50-space homeless shelter in their neighbourhood, saying they’re angry that city hall refused to consult the community beforehand and seems to be ignoring their concerns about the centre’s location near a daycare and several schools.
“it has the potential to turn into a catastrophe,” said ana somarriba, a mother of two who lives across the street from the centre bois-de-boulogne in the north-end district. the city is in negotiations to purchase the building from a foundation.
city officials have done little to allay concerns that drug and alcohol consumption might carry on outside the facility at all hours, including in the neighbouring park, she said.
“we want a public consultation knowing that about 3,500 children and minors are around this centre. a daycare with more than 80 infants is 82 metres away — we measured it.”
about 175 residents attended a meeting organized by neighbours on thursday evening. they discussed legal action, somarriba said. they also plan to write to premier françois legault, quebec family minister suzanne roy and social services minister lionel carmant, she said.
residents also discussed using the citizens’ right of initiative provided for in the montreal charter of rights and responsibilities to force the city to hold a public consultation on the project, somarriba said.
the right of initiative was used notably to launch montreal’s 2019 public consultation on racism and systemic discrimination . in that case, a citizens’ group garnered more than 22,000 signatures to force the landmark consultation by the office de consultation publique de montréal (ocpm).
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the minimum number of signatures needed to hold a city-wide consultation is 15,000, while 5,000 signatures are required to force a local public consultation in a borough the size of ahuntsic-cartierville.
however, residents in rosemont who are also campaigning against an emergency homeless shelter planned in their neighbourhood just found out the city has raised the bar in their case to 15,000 signatures.
the comité pour l’avenir de l’église sainte-bibiane says it had been working to gather 5,000 signatures to force a consultation in their rosemont—la petite-patrie borough, but was told they’ll need 15,000 signatures because the homeless shelter project is spearheaded at the city level by the administration of mayor valérie plante.
in the meantime, city hall announced its own consultation this week.
at a news conference tuesday , plante said the city executive committee had mandated the ocpm to conduct a public consultation on how to implement services for unhoused people while ensuring cohabitation with the neighbourhood. there was no mention of the rosemont group’s initiative. and city officials specifically excluded homeless shelter projects already planned in places like ahuntsic and rosemont from the coming ocpm consultation.
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cohabitation problems have notably plagued the maison benoît labre , a centre for unhoused people that includes a safe-consumption centre, since it opened near an elementary school and playground in st-henri in april.
josée plamondon, who lives near the centre bois-de-boulogne, said the city’s refusal to consult on the ahuntsic project is “shocking.” the community is dealing with other issues, such as poverty and delinquency.
“it’s an incredible lack of consideration,” she said. “bois-de-boulogne ave. is the ‘highway’ leading to the schools in the area.”
an information meeting was held in early july, but city officials weren’t interested in residents’ concerns, plamondon said.
somarriba noted that her neighbours already gathered 937 signatures in one week on an initial petition and are resolved to get however many signatures they would need to force a public consultation.
“valérie plante’s announcement (of a consultation),” she said, “changes absolutely nothing for citizens here and we’ll continue our actions.”
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