The church building, which has been closed since October 2022, is about 250 metres from an elementary school and is surrounded by daycares and four other schools within a 500-metre radius.
“Since the beginning we’ve been engaged in Ping-Pong with the different players to get information,” said Simon Lévesque, one of the organizers of the petition. The father of two is the spokesperson of a newly formed citizens’ committee.
“We want to be heard and be a player, not just a spectator.”
The church, which has been closed since October 2022, is about 250 metres from an elementary school and is surrounded by daycares and four other schools within a 500-metre radius. Parents and seniors are worried about what’s coming to their densely-populated neighbourhood, Lévesque said, and they feel the city hasn’t been forthcoming about the services to be offered in the church and whether the vulnerable clientele would include “heavy” cases. The citizens’ committee filed access-to-information requests to scrape together what little information it has, he said.
Under Montreal’s Charter of Rights and Responsibilities, citizens can initiate a citywide public consultation on a topic if they can collect at least 15,000 signatures within 90 days. The Rosemont committee has until Oct. 16 to reach that minimum.
Citizens would have to gather 5,000 signatures to force a local consultation in a borough the size of Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie. However, municipal officials informed Lévesque’s group that the homeless shelter project is shepherded by the city and therefore requires 15,000 signatures. Moreover, the signatures they already gathered on an initial petition don’t count toward the 15,000 threshold.
Nevertheless, Plante administration spokesperson Marikym Gaudreault says residents of Rosemont and Ahuntsic are welcome to participate in the OCPM consultation.
“The consultation will cover all situations concerning the integration of resources, so we obviously expect them to participate and they are welcome to do so,” Gaudreault said in a text message.
The Rosemont citizens’ committee wants a moratorium on the Ste-Bibiane project until the OCPM submits its report in the spring, Lévesque said. And while the committee welcomes the consultation on the broader issue of integrating services for unhoused people, it still wants a public debate on the plans for Ste-Bibiane, he said.
Lévesque maintains it’s not too late to consult on the project since the city doesn’t own the church yet and no organization has been found to operate the shelter. Every group that has been approached has declined, several sources told The Gazette.
“It didn’t take us a whole lot more than five minutes to identify a whole bunch of things in that facility that would have made it not optimal for the purpose they were thinking it should be used for,” said Sam Watts, the CEO and executive director of Welcome Hall Mission.
His organization was approached to run the future shelter in Ste-Bibiane by the Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux (CIUSSS) du Centre-Sud-de-l’Île-de-Montréal in late spring, he said.
The CIUSSS says it has $1 million set aside to fund services in the future shelter if an organization submits a project.
“Currently, there is no community organization in sight or identified to provide services,” CIUSSS spokesperson Marianne Paquette said.
Most churches aren’t designed for caring for people, Watts said. The issues with Ste-Bibiane, he said, include difficult access, an inadequate number of washrooms and showers, and stairs that would make it difficult to safely serve meals and provide adequate sleeping quarters.
“It was going to create neighbourhood problems for sure,” Watts added of the location.
More resources for unhoused people are needed in Montreal, he said. But “this is the kind of place that would require extensive renovations or the need for us to suspend any sense of dignity of the people we aim to serve, and that’s not something we would want to do.”
Michèle Blanchard, executive director of Maison d’Hérelle, said her organization had signed a lease with the owner, the Fabrique de la paroisse de Saint-Esprit-de-Rosemont, in July 2023, paying one year’s rent in advance. The organization was aware the church was for sale, but understood it would be some time before it would have to be vacated, she said.
“Even if it’s just for nine months, it’s worth it for these people because they have nowhere else to go,” Blanchard said.
“We could have done a lot of good in a year.”
However, the Montreal fire department inspected the church last year as part of the city’s due diligence to acquire the property and informed Blanchard’s organization of safety violations.
“We were told we can’t house anyone in there,” Blanchard said. That was after the borough had said an occupation permit wouldn’t be a problem, she contends.
The organization received a letter from the Fabrique in March telling it to vacate. Maison d’Hérelle has asked the Fabrique to refund $18,000 in rent and about $12,000 spent on paint and repairs, Blanchard said.
The fire department told The Gazette the building requires a fire alarm system and partitions around stairwells, among other things. Maison d’Hérelle’s architect submitted plans to address safety issues, but they were “not acceptable,” the department added.
The mayor’s office says the city was transparent with Maison d’Hérelle about its plans for the church.
“As the city is not yet the owner,” Gaudreault added, “it cannot be blamed for an eviction.”
Lévesque called it “nonsense” that Maison d’Hérelle was forced out so that another organization can eventually move in. Maison d’Hérelle would have been a good fit in the neighbourhood, he said.
Meanwhile, Gaudreault said the city is open to discussing the possibility of accommodating Maison d’Hérelle in its plans for Ste-Bibiane.
However, “the damage is done,” Blanchard said of working with the city.
“We set up and moved out without ever having been able to occupy the church, and during a year where nothing was happening with the building. They (the city) should have made a compromise.”