New rules and regulations regarding Montreal's public spaces and parks have been cropping up regularly over the past year, starting with last September's closure of the last public spaces where homeless people could legally sleep overnight. Since then, the ticketing of homeless individuals for sleeping in metro stations has skyrocketed, and this past July saw the banning of dogs in both Berri and Viger Squares to ensure that the homeless and their pets keep out.

Says Pierre Gaudreau, co-ordinator for RAPSIM, "The closing of the parks at night and the new regulations banning dogs is to get homeless people to go elsewhere in the city, and it's harder for the community groups and for the workers to help and to try to reach them."

As homeless individuals are fleeing the downtown core in fear of fines that frequently lead to jail time, they are instead congregating in fewer numbers in smaller pockets in the city, away from services geared towards the homeless and out of the sights of outreach workers, among others.

Says Alex "Gadget" Berthelot, outreach worker from Homelessnation.org, "I can normally meet 50 kids doing my route, now I am lucky if I see six or seven."

Berthelot explained that when individuals are arrested in the designated "red zone" area that is comprised of lower St-Laurent Blvd., and Berri and Viger Squares, they are frequently asked to sign a document stipulating that they will not return to the area as a condition of their release.

Says Berthelot, "If you sign that paper, you can't go to Dans la Rue, you can't go to the needle exchanges, even the Native Friendship Centre is in that red zone. You can't go to any of the social resources that are meant for those people."

 
 

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MTL Adopts SS Tactics     Perhaps it's time to take a step back and look at what's going on here objectively. We're talking about the relentless persecution of a specific group of people by using the law as a none too subtle bludgeon without offering them a place to go. The intent is to displace people that the those in power want gone. This isn't a solution, this is a systematic herding program to drive out a group of undesirables while at the same time denying them of the tools to better themselves. Historically, similar fear mongering tactics were used by those in power to achieve their goals, goals which were promoted as serving the greater good. People, these are methods and politics that are just shades away from what the Nazi Party used. Extreme deduction of the facts you think? Go ask a homeless person if he thinks so.
Eric Bertrand	{2 votes}	September 8th, 2007
The balance to have with homeless people!     Everything in life is a question of balance and equity...The recent terrible assassination of an innocent homeless individual in Quebec, is the evidence of the ignorance of the public, in general, of the problem of the homeless people, in their daily dark life for food and shelter. For their best choice of life, they choose the street. It is already a choice of disturbances and pain. Already a choice of injustice . No balance there...On the other side, the rules of the quebec society change in a drastic way to restrict their rights. Abuse of balance?No parks for them in the night, no dogs. A way to oblige them to sleep in recognised shelters and to clean the parks from their nasty and durty looks? The dogs part is really not an abuse from the officials and I am more understanding with them to bannish dogs from the homeless people. They have already enough to try to take care of themselves and cannot take care properly of animals, no matter what they are. The balance is just there to give them still more areas to sleep but the homeless people have to compromise on the animals part. Fair and cool.
Myriam Sainson	{1 vote}	September 6th, 2007
Access     I think one of the steps that has to be made is that public health and public security need to start working together. It's like their on a tandem bike putting sticks in each others wheels. On one hand you have public health trying to go to where the homeless people are and trying to help them and establish some kind of trust relationship while public security is doing everything to push them away o that they are not seen. We are starting to see the results of this parade of contradictions. People are being pushed further and further away from the downtown core which also happens to be the core of all the services oriented towards homeless people. Without access to theses places people's conditions begin to deteriorate and the meek existence that they managed to eke out before is cut back yet again. It's pretty clear that we cannot accept the conditions of not being in the area. However it's mandatory to sign the conditions to be released. It's a blatant catch22. A way to set people up for jail terms for as little as spitting on the sidewalk. You get the ticket and the "redzone" which for a municipal offense but however if you are caught within the perimeter (that you need to be in to take care of your most basic needs ie: food shelter etc.) it becomes a breach of conditions which is a criminal offense punishable by jail time. see you from Bordeaux
Alex "Gadget" Bertheot		October 17th, 2007
DUMBfounding!     So let me get this circular logic straight..before release you are asked to sign a document stipulating that you will not return to the area as a condition of your release...thereby ensuring that groups that are there to aid you are now off-limits. What the hell is going on here?!! Like others have stated more eloquently this is akin to kicking a dog while he is down. This ridiculous and absolutely unacceptable. How about a more novel idea of actually extending a helping hand to someone when they are down. Better yet how about putting a few politicians out on the street for a week and see what homeless have to deal with in their day to day lives!!
Reuven De Souza	{1 vote}	September 10th, 2007
What To Do     Why not put Quebec politicians out in the street and see how they will survive the closing of parks and the fining. And those politicians sleep well at night? No we are not in Brazil with harassing squads but I don't want to see that happen in the future and that is the way we are headed should police get short tempered.
Martin Dansky		September 9th, 2007
Can't sign away basic rights and freedoms     There's an old expression, "you can't kick a dead dog". The authorities know that they cannot, by law, prevent homeless people from walking through these areas.They cannot prevent a homeless person from visiting Dans la Rue or the Native Friendship Centre for safe needles. The authorities of this city have reduced themselves to fear mongering. I just love paying taxes for shallow solutions to the dire states of homelessness and poverty. I'm confident that my municiple tax dollar is going to such a noble cause like sanitizing our city core for the gentrification of "Festival Corner". These authorities weren't satisfied enough with their early summer impromptu lockdown of the abandoned storefronts and buildings, that hug the south and north flanks of Sainte-Catherine between Bleury and Jeanne Mance. No now they have to menace the "dead dog". I'm sure that you boys and girls can all sleep tight knowing that you bullied defenseless people off the streets. As a native-born Montrealer and downtown rat, I can 't remember a time when a homeless person gave me any reason to fear his/her presence. What they fail to tell these homeless individuals is that it is actually unlawful to loiter or unlawfully assemble in a given area. It is not unlawful to move freely and continously throughout downtown or anywhere else. Homelesss people may not have a visibkle identity but they still have the rights and freedoms that are allotted to all citizens of a democracy. We are not in Brazil. There are no killing squads here. No one has the right to stop anyone on the street and ask to sign away their right to "visit" a given area. The authorities are contributing to hte certain death or further demise of the homeless by denying the basic human right to hot food and sanitary conditions. Who the HE-DOUBLE HOCKEY STICKS are you? Shame on you Mayor Tremblay. You're no longer the man I voted for. You're like all the others before you; you're pandering to the rich and influential. SHAME!
Heather Lee		September 7th, 2007

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