Montreal opens additional winter shelters for homeless during cold snap

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The City of Montreal and the CIUSSS of Center-Sud-de-l’Île-de-Montréais are opening more winter shelters and warming centres for the homeless as temperatures drop.

A total of 925 emergency winter shelters will open for the homeless during the winter of 2017/2018.

There will be 740 emergency shelters for men, 110 for women and 65 for youth.

#Montréal connaît sa première vague de froid. 900 lits d’urgence sont prêts pour accueillir les personnes en situation d’itinérance.

» https://t.co/k4KTAyrtew

@ciusss_csmtl – #Mtl – #froid – #santé – #itinérance pic.twitter.com/iprBNlJsPY

— Ville de Montréal (@MTL_Ville) December 15, 2017

Other measures being put in place include:

A shuttle bus: Operates from 2:30 pm to 4:00 am in the downtown core to provide homeless people with better access to available resources.The schedule will be available soon
Warming centre: The day centre of the Mission St-Michael / Red Roof, located in the borough of Ville-Marie, opens its doors every night until April 30 to offer warmth, food and rest in its local. Mission St-Michael has cages for up to three animals
Community intervention teams: The CCSMTL’s homelessness, street youth and emergency psychosocial-justice (UPS-J) teams as well as the mixed teams composed of SPVM police officers and social workers from the CCSMTL, the Mobile Referral Team. Roaming Intervention Program (EMRII) and the Psychosocial Emergencies Support Team (ESUP) are doing outreach work

Every year the City invests $778,000 towards winter safety and shelter for the homeless.

“It is essential that the City of Montreal and its partners pool their expertise to offer quality and accessible services to the public. This offer must be even more present during the cold weather,” said Rosannie Filato, social and community development manager, for the City of Montreal.

“The city is actively contributing to the deployment of emergency measures for people experiencing homelessness. We will continue to make every effort to ensure that every Montrealer has a home and what it takes to live in complete safety and dignity.”

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