An abandoned tent, part of a former encampment, sits in an empty lot located along the Rivière du Nord north of the city centre in Saint-Jérôme, Que. on Jan. 18.Evan Buhler/The Globe and Mail
“In Saint-Jérôme, we try to take care of homelessness as much as possible, and we do it better than anywhere else in Quebec,” Mayor Marc Bourcier told a local radio station last November.
Not everybody agrees.
Saint-Jérôme, a city of 82,000 people, is nestled at the foot of the Laurentian Mountains, about 45 kilometres northwest of Montreal. It is a regional service hub, home to a psychiatric-care facility, a youth-protection centre and a jail, all places that are potentially tied to homelessness.
In the radio interview, Mr. Bourcier praised health and social-service workers, a police unit dedicated to dealing with the homeless, and La Hutte, a non-profit offering temporary housing and a warming station during winter nights. “We try to be benevolent,” he said.
Like many places in Canada, Saint-Jérôme has seen a surge in visible homelessness since the COVID-19 pandemic. It is the most populous city in the Laurentides region, where the unhoused population more than doubled between 2018 and 2022, according to the latest provincial count.
The municipal council’s response was to ban homeless encampments in October, 2022, adding to other bylaws forbidding loitering, panhandling and sleeping in public spaces such as parks and sidewalks.
In interviews and legal documents, homeless people and those who work with them said police officers and city workers now systematically dismantle their makeshift shelters, throw away their belongings, impose hefty fines and occasionally detain those who cannot pay.
The Mobile Legal Clinic, which advocates for homeless people’s rights in Quebec, filed a lawsuit against Saint-Jérôme on Jan. 3, alleging that its bylaws unduly infringe on their constitutional right to life, liberty and security of the person.
This follows similar, successful petitions in British Columbia and Ontario. Last year, a judge denied Waterloo’s request to remove a homeless encampment because doing so in the absence of adequate indoor space would violate the residents’ rights.
“There is a glaring lack of places to sleep at night, and for this reason many people experiencing homelessness in Saint-Jérôme have no alternative but to spend their nights and days on the street,” the Legal Clinic’s lawsuit says.
La Hutte’s facility offers about 50 temporary rooms and emergency beds. Still, the lawsuit says it has excluded individuals from its premises because they took drugs, were too aggressive, missed a curfew, or for no specific reason. Stays at the night warming station are capped at two hours at a time, and sleeping is prohibited.
Between 40 and 50 people thus sleep outdoors daily in Saint-Jérôme, according to Le Book humanitaire, a non-profit patrolling the city at night, giving out food and clothing.
La Hutte director François Savoie said his facility is open to every adult “no matter what their condition, but there’s always a question of safety.” He said one person was barred, for example, after repeatedly lighting fires in the building.
On Jan. 5, the Superior Court declined to grant a temporary injunction ordering the city to stop dismantling encampments, saying there was no emergency to do so before deciding the case on its merits. Legal Clinic director Donald Tremblay said this would take months and declined to comment further.
Meanwhile, the dismantling of encampments continues in Saint-Jérôme, shuffling people around and further into the margins. Last fall, a homeless man was found dead deep in a park forest, local media reported. The Quebec coroner’s office opened an investigation into the death.
“It’s a cat-and-mouse game,” said Stéphanie Bérard, director of the local Centre d’assistance et d’accompagnement aux plaintes (CAAP), a non-profit helping people assert their rights to health and social services.
The CAAP filed a complaint with Quebec’s Ombudsman last year after health care professionals, social workers and police officers denounced the dismantlement policy and lack of resources. Ms. Bérard continues to gather testimony from homeless people and the complaint is under review.
Saint-Jérôme spokesperson Marie-Ève Proulx declined The Globe and Mail’s interview requests with city officials because of the lawsuit. “The resources available in the territory meet the population needs of people experiencing homelessness,” she wrote in an e-mail, declining to answer questions on the dismantling of encampments.
Late last month, however, Mr. Bourcier, the mayor, said in a news release addressing homelessness that the city “cannot replace the Ministry of Health and Social Services in assuming the population responsibilities incumbent on it.”
Juliette Lacasse, a spokesperson for the CISSS des Laurentides, a local health authority overseen by the provincial ministry, said it is working to connect homeless people with housing and other services.
Encampments “are a temporary solution poorly suited to the real needs of people experiencing homelessness,” especially in the winter, she said.