A Montreal social worker recounts trying to help a 42-year-old undocumented migrant several weeks before his death on the street in the Parc-Extension neighbourhood. 

Amina Saman works with several community organizations that provide support and services to homeless people in the area.

She explained that she knew Manjeet Singh and had offered to help him renew his refugee status and work permit, as well as find suitable accommodation at the beginning of January.

He was found unresponsive in the street shortly afterwards and his death was confirmed at the hospital on Jan. 16.

Saman said she was shocked when she learned the news from colleagues.

“I thought to myself: how is this possible? I saw him last week,” she recounted. “I was speechless. I don’t know what to say. I could have saved him.” 

A vigil in his honor

Saman mentioned Singh’s death as members of the community prepared to hold a vigil in his honor on Tuesday evening. 

This event takes place a week after the Quebec coroner’s office announced a new investigation into the increase in deaths of homeless people in Montreal.

Singh was cremated in Montreal last week, four months after his death, and Saman is continuing her efforts to repatriate his ashes to India.

Singh’s documents indicate that he arrived in Canada from India in 2018 as an asylum seeker, but Ms. Saman explained that he had difficulty finding work. She clarified that he remained undocumented after his brown card and work permit expired in 2022.

She is in contact with Singh’s family, including his wife and two children, whom he had hoped to bring to Canada. Saman indicated that the family was devastated and had faced difficulties locating his body and repatriating it for burial due to language barriers and financial constraints.

She added that the family wants answers. Although Stéphanie Gamache’s inquest is focused on the deaths of five people, the coroner’s office indicated that it could expand its investigation to other cases, as statistics reveal a sharp increase in the number of deaths in the province in recent years.

While only 19 deaths of homeless people were recorded in Quebec in 2020, the coroner’s office specifies that this number rose to 21 in 2021, 38 in 2022, 88 in 2023 and 123 in 2024.

The coroner’s office added that it did not yet have complete data for 2025.

Amy Darwish, coordinator of a local community housing organization, explained that Singh had been evicted from a cramped apartment he shared with several other people following an argument with a roommate. He found himself homeless and exposed to the cold.

Darwish pointed out that there is no emergency shelter or warming centre in the area, which could have saved Singh’s life. 

“This death could have been completely avoided. He shouldn’t have died like that. And I believe this highlights the need to take steps to ensure this never happens again,” she said.

Darwish indicated that she had been informed of the deaths of three other homeless people in the area during the winter.

Parc-Extension was once known as Montreal’s most affordable and diverse neighbourhood. But, as everywhere in the city, rents have skyrocketed, especially since the arrival of a new university campus in the area in 2019, explained Darwish.

“Landlords wanted to take advantage of this, and rents became uncontrollable,” she lamented. “It is very difficult to find affordable housing, which creates a context where people feel forced to accept conditions that are often very precarious and abusive.”

The organizers of the vigil, including Darwish, are calling for better resources for the neighborhood’s homeless population. They also want the government to adopt a program to regularize the status of undocumented migrants, like Singh.

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews