UnCoupdeMain.org  see AHandUp.org

Au lieu de gaspiller un milliard de dollars pour un toit inutile, laissez-le sans toit.

Après tout, pendant les 11 premières années de son existence, le toit était conservé au sous-sol.

-- Barbra Hudson

The number of people living in emergency shelters or on the streets surged in all regions of Quebec over the last four years but rose most sharply outside Montreal, a new report says.

Commissioned by the province’s Health Department, the report found that “visible” homelessness in Quebec increased by about 44 per cent between April 2018 and October 2022, and by 33 per cent in Montreal.

The Quebec government is awarding a subsidy of between $5 million and $7 million for two Los Angeles Kings exhibition games in Quebec City, to be held at the Centre Vidéotron in October 2024.

Finance Minister Eric Girard made the announcement on Tuesday morning. He was asked several times about the amount of government assistance.

Matthew Hayes, a sociology professor at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, N.B., said between the 2016 and the 2021 census, Halifax lost 8,140 housing units priced below $1,000 a month. This is a 25 per cent reduction in the stock.

"If you're looking for a low-income apartment or a low-rent apartment, they're almost impossible to find in Halifax," said Hayes, whose work focuses on gentrification and urban studies. "They're disappearing much faster than they're being replaced."

Lorsque le bureau de l’élu de QS a appris ce qui se passait au 2215, boulevard Rosemont, des membres de l’équipe de Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois sont allés à la rencontre des locataires.

«On a des gens qui nous ont dit qu’ils voulaient payer leur loyer, qu’ils ont essayé de toutes les manières pour essayer de le faire en allant même chercher des adresses sur le registraire des entreprises. Et ces gens-là se retrouvent quand même devant le TAL», poursuit M. Nadeau-Dubois.

«Sur mon bail, c’est écrit que je paie en cash, ici, dans l’immeuble. Ça fait trois mois que j’essaie de payer, mais eux veulent que je paie avec des chèques postdatés ou que je fasse une heure de trajet pour aller donner l’argent comptant à leur bureau», explique William Riley, qui vit depuis plus d’un an au 2215 boulevard Rosemont, à Montréal.

M. Riley est poursuivi au Tribunal administratif du logement (TAL) par son nouveau locateur, la société 2215 Rosemont inc., appartenant à Mark Kilajian. Ce dernier demande la résiliation du bail à cause d’un retard de paiement de son loyer de plus de trois semaines. Dans l’immeuble de 67 logements, une vingtaine d’autres locataires ont reçu le même avis.

City hall enforced its eviction notice at Halifax’s Grand Parade encampment today by disconnecting power to the tents still at the site, but even on one of the coldest days of the year, the people living there refuse to leave.

At 9 a.m. this morning, city crews and volunteers from the encampment disconnected the only source of power, which provided heating to all the tents, plunging people living there into the bitter cold.

Kevin McGuire is one of 12 people still living on the property. For him, the tent was a safe space, warm, and comfortable enough.

“I’m feeling really cold. It was minus 25 this morning. They took away my power which was my only source of heat,” said McGuire. “This is only going to make me sicker and I’d be lucky if I can survive it.

"We've got people who walk alongside them for a couple of months, and then they're on their own," he told The Current's Matt Galloway.

The program was born mid-2021, after intervention workers noticed many people falling into homelessness since the beginning of the pandemic didn't fit the usual profile.

"[They're] somebody who's just struggling and a few dollars away from homelessness, unable to pay their rent, or they're part of maybe a classic rental eviction," he said.

The widely held stereotype that people experiencing homelessness would be more likely to spend extra cash on drugs, alcohol and “temptation goods” has been upended by a study that found a majority used a $7,500 payment mostly on rent, food, housing, transit and clothes.

The biases punctured by the study highlight the difficulties in developing policies to reduce homelessness, say the Canadian researchers behind it.