If you use Montreal’s metro system, you might notice that sometimes the homeless take refuge in the shelter. Sometimes they are kicked out, leaving them to the streets if they can’t find space in a shelter. 

David Chapman, Project Coordinator for Homeless Shelter Resilience Montreal, and John Tessier, Coordinator at homeless shelter The Open Door, both spoke to Local 514 about the risks homeless people face during the winter and why kicking homeless people outside of the metro stations is so detrimental during the cold months.

Temperatures have dipped into the minus 20s and minus 30 in recent weeks, making the outdoors a much more dangerous place for the homeless to sleep, says Chapman.

In January, two homeless people passed away in the midst of cold temperatures. A 74-year-old homeless man froze to death on the streets of the NDG-Cote-des-Neiges neighbourhood and a homeless woman in her sixties died due to health complications as a result of sleeping outside of Berri-UQAM Metro station.

This is not the only death Montreal's homeless community has experienced in the last year. Last fall, Inuk elder Elisapee Pootoogook passed away at a construction site near Cabot square. Those in her circle suspect she froze to death after being chased out of Atwater metro station, where she often sought refuge during cold Montreal nights.

The first death of a homeless person in 2021 occurred less than a couple weeks after the first curfew took effect, as Raphael "Nappa" André, a homeless Innu man froze to death while sheltering in a port-a-potty. He was just a block away from the Open Door shelter, which had not yet opened to the community for 24 hour services. 

Some shelters are facing outbreaks, not just among their clients but staff as well. Over the holidays, 27 shelters reported outbreaks in Montreal. 

What was once a homeless population of 2,000 pre-pandemic, has doubled to 4,000 homeless people on the streets of Montreal. 

This reel was used to promo the most recent episode of Local 514.

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