Montreal’s metro system will see more police patrols and a crackdown on loitering, transit officials said Thursday, citing the fact the network has become a last-resort shelter for people struggling with drug addiction and mental illness.
Executives with the transit agency told reporters that vulnerable people who have slipped through the cracks of the social safety net are spending all day in its tunnels to keep warm. In response, the Société de transport de Montréal will fence off problematic gathering places in metro stations and implement an “obligation of movement” policy until April 30.
Éric Alan Caldwell, head of the transit agency’s board of directors, said the skyrocketing number of people struggling with drug addiction and mental illness in the stations has led to a decreased sense of security among transit users and employees, as well as a hike in complaints regarding safety, incivilities and drug use.
While the metro tunnels have always been a gathering place for people who are homeless, he said the situation has become unsustainable.
“The metro is not a shelter,” he said. “It’s not a place that offers care.”
Marie-Claude Léonard, transit agency CEO, said employees and transit users are increasingly seeing open drug use, human waste, used syringes and disruptive behaviours. The metro is not a safe place for people who need care, Léonard said, noting it doesn’t have bathrooms and the tracks are electrified.
The announcement was quickly criticized by Opposition politicians at city hall and the head of a homeless resource centre, who pointed out that the people taking shelter in the metro have nowhere else to go.
Nakuset, who uses one name and is executive director of the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal, said people who are displaced from metro stations will just go to other public places, such as malls, and some might die outside.
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“Nobody wants to help those that are most vulnerable,” she said. “They just want to push them aside and it’s disgusting, it’s heartbreaking.”
Benoit Langevin, the critic for homelessness for Montreal’s Opposition, acknowledged the problems in the metro. However, he said the crackdown on loitering should have been accompanied with additional resources for people.
“There’s no balancing in this approach,” he said. “If you arrive with a coercive approach, you need to have a preventive announcement as well.”
As part of the announcement, the City of Montreal said it will extend operations of two warming centres for one month, until the end of April. People without shelter can use these spaces to get out of the cold.
Mayor Valérie Plante acknowledged that most homeless shelters are at full capacity, and that limiting the access of vulnerable people to the metro was a “heartbreaking” decision. But she also said the main role of the transit network is to move people safely, adding that some people are scared to take the subway.
“We need to avoid the breaking point where users say, ‘I don’t want to take the metro any more,’” Plante said. “We have to absolutely avoid a situation like that, it would be absolutely disastrous.”
Statistics provided by the transit authority noted a decline in the number of people reporting they feel a sense of security in the network, to 49 per cent. There has also been a rise in the number of calls to special constables to report incivilities, and a spike in the number of people given naloxone, which is used in cases of overdoses.
Also on Thursday, the city announced a new working group composed of city and transit officials, police and health-care workers to consider long-term solutions to homelessness and drug addition. Plante said the city was also working on several social housing projects and appealing to the province for more funding.
As part of its plan to make riders feel more safe, the transit agency said it will restrict access inside nine metro stations in areas that have become “tension points” due to cleanliness issues, criminality and drug use. Officials said they did not expect the measures to last past April 30, when the weather will be warmer.
Montreal police said they have increased patrols in the transit network, including at night.
When faced with multiple questions about how special constables would enforce the new policy against loitering, Léonard said the order would not be applied across the board, but rather in cases in which people are behaving in a disruptive manner that makes others feel unsafe.
“The goal is not to not have any more vulnerable people, it’s to ensure the sense of security,” she said, adding that the constables would continue to direct people to resources with “kindness and good judgment.”
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