In Montreal, services for the vulnerable spark a backlash, but no easy solutions

MONTREAL — Montreal leaders are struggling to convince the public of the city’s approach to treating people with serious addictions and the homeless, as those social crises become fodder for political attacks.

In Montreal’s St-Henri neighborhood, a supervised use site that also provides temporary housing for homeless people with addiction and mental health issues has angered nearby residents because it’s located near an elementary school. A few miles away, in downtown Montreal, another supervised drug use site has helped turn part of the neighborhood into what’s become known as “crack alley.”

The city is feeling the pressure from residents and in response will hold public consultations on how to integrate services for vulnerable people in urban areas. Montreal’s mayor is also facing criticism from federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, who held a press conference outside St-Henri’s Maison Benoît Labre on July 12, saying the mayor was forcing children to go to school near a “drug den.”

But experts say there are no easy solutions. People with serious drug addiction need services such as places where they can use drugs under supervision, where they can get treatment if they overdose. Otherwise, they risk dying on the streets.

Elaine Hyshka, Canadian Research Chair in health systems innovation and associate professor at the University of Alberta, said city officials are opening safe injection sites in urban areas because those are where drug users are. These sites, she said, can’t be located in remote parts of the city because “the vast majority of people won’t go more than a kilometre to access supervised use services.”

François Gagnon, senior scientist and special policy advisor at the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse and Addiction, says safe consumption sites would ideally be located away from schools. But that’s not always possible in densely populated Montreal.

“In a city as densely populated as Montreal, it’s pretty hard to find anything that’s not close to a preschool or a school,” he said.

But these facts do not comfort André Lambert, who has lived in St. Henri, a block from Maison Benoît Labre, for the past 15 years. He says his neighborhood has felt less safe since the facility opened in April.

“People are afraid to live here,” Lambert said, adding that his neighbor had been attacked the previous weekend by people smoking crack outside his door.

Lambert wants the centre closed; he is part of a group of residents who have written several letters to a number of Quebec officials with a request to intervene.

Waiting for the bus by Maison Benoît Labre, Marie-Ève ​​​​Pelletier, who works at a nearby dental clinic, says she is often yelled at on the way to the bus stop. “It’s always a problem when I take the bus here because I never know how people are going to react, because they are often aggressive.”

Hyshka said people can be stuck outside safe injection sites because there isn’t enough housing. Some of the sites, she said, have become “lightning rods” because they tend to be sparse and far apart, serving large groups of people rather than spread across the city in a wider array of facilities.

What doesn’t help bridge the gap between the public and vulnerable populations, Hyshka says, is that some politicians at all levels of government “use controlled consumption services as a wedge bet to increase their popular support, without thinking about the potential negative costs of their actions.”

Dr. Julie Bruneau, Canada Research Chair in addiction medicine and a clinical researcher at the Université de Montréal, says homelessness, drug addiction and mental health issues have become much more severe and visible in Canada’s major cities since the COVID-19 pandemic. Supported consumption sites like CACTUS Montréal, located in the city’s so-called “crack alley” — a term used by several local media organizations — have struggled due to understaffing, low wages, uncertain program funding and a lack of space to house the large numbers of people in need of life-saving services.

The result, Bruneau says, is that people in some areas are angry when they see their neighborhoods become the face of social crises, especially if they paid high prices to buy property nearby. But she says services need to be delivered where vulnerable people are.

Gagnon says there are several measures that can be implemented to prevent backlash from residents living near places where consumption is monitored. They include asking users not to leave the premises if they are very intoxicated, organizing regular cleanups of discarded needles, and coordinating with police or hiring private security to maintain order around the places.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 20, 2024.

Joe Bongiorno, The Canadian Press