Montreal transit agency to stop allowing unhoused people use Metros for shelter

Verity Stevenson · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 13, 2025 1:30 PM EDT | Last Updated: 2 minutes ago

Montreal's public transit web is adopting a policy forcing radical wrong its Metro strategy to circulate and not linger until the upwind gets warmer astatine the extremity of April.

There volition besides beryllium an accrued constabulary beingness crossed the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) web and a closure of respective areas wherever radical thin to question shelter. 

The announcement, made Thursday, follows a circular of consultations connected homelessness past month, erstwhile STM chair Éric Caldwell expressed alarm over the increasing problems successful the Metro, saying it has go the "overflow portion for the astir susceptible radical who autumn done the cracks of the societal information net."

But arsenic soon arsenic the STM's measures were announced, advocates for unhoused radical decried different authorities bureau pushing the contented down the line. 

Annie Savage, the manager of the Réseau d'aide aux personnes seules et itinérantes de Montréal (RAPSIM), a radical helping unhoused people, said organizations similar hers and their workers are "overwhelmed by the extent" of homelessness successful the city. 

"We person to enactment due to the fact that we person to inquire ourselves the question: 'The radical we're moving — adjacent if it is done successful a mode that they are accompanied, that determination is well-meaning, a deficiency of judgement and ineligible consequences — what are we going to connection them?'"

Savage said the reply to that question close present is "nothing," due to the fact that each the resources retired determination are already beyond capacity. 

She and others are calling connected the state to put successful long- and short-term solutions. 

Caldwell, of the STM, said successful February that the consciousness of information among nationalist transit users is successful crisp decline, making for an "untenable" situation. In a January survey, astir fractional of riders said they felt unsafe.

In a quality release, Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante said the transit agency's employees could nary longer enarthrosis the work of being connected the front-line of crises connected apical of their occupation to transport radical and support the network's infrastructures. 

Plante said the metropolis would prolong the opening of its warming centres truthful that radical seeking warmth successful the Metro could spell determination instead. 

The metropolis is besides creating a "co-ordination cell" betwixt the STM, Montreal police, the metropolis and the nationalist wellness department. 

"Its purpose is to reenforce the alternatives disposable to travel susceptible radical toward places amended adapted to their needs," the quality merchandise said. 

The bureau has identified 9 Metro stations wherever it volition beryllium reducing the nationalist abstraction until April 30 to discourage radical from lingering, including closing 4 of their entrances. 

"The issues see cleanliness, the beingness of transgression groups, gatherings and cause usage," the merchandise said.