The City of Montreal is opening its first modular housing units with support services, with the aim to provide safe, stable homes for dozens and offer a concrete response to the city’s growing homelessness crisis.
Inaugurated on the old Hippodrome site in the Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough Monday, Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante said her administration is proud of “thinking outside the box.”
“This is the only way that people directly affected by the vulnerability crisis can regain dignified living conditions and residential stability,” she said in a statement.
The 27 rooms are for those waiting for social housing and are designed for people who don’t have substance abuse issues or behavioural issues related to mental health.
The Old Brewery Mission will be managing care and helping residents get help with welfare, ID cards and looking for permanent housing.
“They’re motivated to get in and out as quickly as possible,” said James Hughes, president and CEO of the Old Brewery Mission.
He said there will be three meals a day, around-the-clock support and the turnaround is expected to be about three to six months.
“We’re going to fill this place up very, very quickly,” Hughes said. “For sure there will be some people from downtown, there will be some people from the west but this is not going to be hard to fill.”
The Société d’habitation du Québec invested $1.7 million to enable the development of these units on the former racetrack site, the city says in a statement.
These buildings have been converted into 27 rooms with offices and common areas. (John Ngala/CBC)
This funding comes from the $992 million provided by the federal government to Quebec through the Canada-Quebec agreement. Montreal contributed $2.5 million to the project, notably for the acquisition of the modular buildings and site preparation.
“This unique modular housing project with support services allows us to create a fully functioning living environment with all the necessary assets to facilitate social and economic reintegration for residents within a community and to support them in their search for permanent housing,” said Pierre Lessard-Blais, the special adviser on homelessness on Montreal’s executive committee.
In addition, Quebec’s Health Ministry provided $790,000 per year to the Old Brewery Mission to ensure the deployment of services adapted to the needs of the residents.
The city says a second site in Ahuntsic-Cartierville will be ready to welcome residents in January while a third in Outremont will open next summer.