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Two advocacy groups recently stirred debate with a public campaign over emergency housing resources for tenants in the West Island but haven’t yet met with local mayors to deal with their concerns.

The Table de Quartier Sud de l’Ouest-de-l’Île (TQSOI) and Table de Quartier du Nord de l’Ouest-de-l’Île de Montréal (TQNOIM) launched an open letter campaign on Nov. 8 encouraging local citizens and community organizations to call upon demerged West Island cities to deal with potential gaps in emergency housing resources and to seek out untapped available subsidies or services.

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The open letter cites a few blazes that took place in Dorval and Dollard-des-Ormeaux this year. It states there was a lack of communication with fire victims and that some delays in referrals to the Office municipal d’habitation de Montréal (OMHM) followed a few days of initial emergency temporary housing covered by the Red Cross.

Lily Martin, a TQSOI co-ordinator who heads the West Island Tenant’s Action Committee, said that while the Red Cross and the OMHM did  provide for temporary housing following the apartment fires on Garden Crescent in Dorval in September, she said there didn’t seem to be a clear flow of referral information for displaced tenants seeking assistance.

“In this instance, upon looking into it, we found that there was a general lack of communication and understanding amongst relevant authorities in Dorval to make that referral,” she told the Montreal Gazette, adding TQSOI took the initiative to help tenants push files forward.

As a positive aside, Martin said she did later hear back from one fire victim who was provided two months of temporary housing until the OMHM successfully assisted her in finding a new apartment.

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Martin said while the OMHM covers fire victims throughout the agglomeration, a key concern also being raised is that demerged West Island cities are missing out on other services for temporary housing, storage and moving services, and housing search assistance for households that are displaced for other reasons, such as “renovictions,” repossessions and evacuations because of a sanitation problem. She suggested demerged cities could make their own subsidy overtures to the Société d’habitation du Québec (SHQ) for such situations.

“Currently, only residents of the city of Montreal are eligible for these services and interventions, because only the city of Montreal has applied for the relevant funding from the SHQ and come to an agreement with the OMHM to staff and fund this referral service. So, our objective is to get demerged cities to apply for the same funding … which they are eligible for …. in order to close the gap between demerged cities and the city of Montreal,” she stated.

Martin said their campaign goal is to raise awareness and gather as many citizens’ signatures as possible for the open letter before officially submitting it to all eight demerged West Island cities later this month.

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Mathieu Vachon, OHMN’s director of communications, confirmed that rehousing assistance that is not associated with a disaster or evacuation covered by Montreal’s fire department is a responsibility that falls to the demerged cities.

“And, of course, we will always be interested in looking with the demeregd cities at the possibilities of offering this service to their citizens,” he said.

Cases related to a fire can be referred to OHMN’s emergency housing, which takes over from the Red Cross after a few days, on any part of the island of Montreal, Vachon said.

Dorval Mayor Marc Doret said unequivocally there are measures in place to provide aid following apartment fires. He pointed out his city’s public security patrol helped evacuate residents at the recent apartment building fires. Its community aid department liaised on site with the Red Cross, which had been alerted by the fire department about the seriousness of the blazes. The city has open channels and good co-ordination with the OHMN, he added.

“The Red Cross provides temporary shelter for three days. That is a service that is well known. Families are put up in hotels,” he said. “In Dorval, we have a process where we may decide to keep people in these hotels for additional days beyond the three days the Red Cross offers, while we co-ordinate with the Office municipal d’habitation de Montréal to get them housed.”

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Some tenants who had apartment insurance or were able to stay with friends or family after the blaze might not have reached out to the city for assistance with accommodation, he added.

Doret noted that OMHM falls under the auspices of the agglomeration, to which his suburban city contributes about $86 million a year to cover regional services. Dorval is open to reviewing any agreements regarding OMHM services, he added.

As for the open letter campaign, Doret said he would have preferred its organizers took the courtesy to contact city officials before they launched their public appeal, to better understand their concerns and discuss proposals.

Either way, opening the eyes of West Islanders to housing needs and seeking input is never a bad idea, but advocates should now prioritize sitting down with demerged cities to potentially strengthen services.

Information on the open letter campaign can be found at tqsoi.org or linktr.ee/westislandhousing.

[email protected]

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