Mayor Valérie Plante’s office calls the measure “questionable” and urges a more “humane” approach. But Desjardins says it’s a safety issue.
A children’s song meant to entertain has taken on a controversial role in tackling homelessness. Complexe Desjardins has been playing the song Baby Shark in its stairwells to deter unhoused individuals — a tactic critics describe as both misguided and dehumanizing.
“This is a juvenile way of chasing people out of a stairwell,” said Sam Watts, CEO of the Welcome Hall Mission, an organization that provides housing services to those in need. “It displaces the problem instead of solving it, and it goes against the values of a community-focused organization like Desjardins.”
Watts, who also serves on Canada’s National Housing Council, went further, saying: “The people who came up with this idea should be ashamed of themselves.”
Mayor Valérie Plante’s office also criticized the measure, calling it “questionable” and urging a more “humane” approach.
The Desjardins Group, which owns the downtown complex, defended the measure, calling it part of a “sound solution” installed over a year ago to improve safety and discourage loitering in areas deemed unsafe for overnight stays.
“For safety reasons, people experiencing homelessness can’t stay in the emergency stairwells,” said Jean-Benoît Turcotti a spokesperson for Desjardins. “Our goal is not to coerce these people but to support them.”
This is not the first time music, or specifically Baby Shark, has been used to deter itinerants. In the United States, the City of West Palm Beach, Fla., played the song on a loop in a park to discourage overnight stays.
And so far, Turcotti said, the Baby Shark song, which goes along “doo doo, doo doo, doo doo” on loop, has improved the situation.
He added that the complex employs two social workers to engage with unhoused individuals.
A short-sighted fix?
Critics, however, have dismissed the use of Baby Shark as a short-sighted approach to addressing homelessness.
Watts argued that instead of relying on music to drive people away, businesses should collaborate with organizations experienced in providing support. He emphasized the importance of engaging directly with individuals, starting conversations, and connecting them to necessary care as the foundation for meaningful solutions.
“Solving homelessness is not going to happen because you find a way of chasing them out of your neighbourhood or out of your building,” Watts said.
Montreal’s homelessness crisis has grown significantly in recent years, with at least 5,000 people relying on emergency shelters or transitional housing, and hundreds more living unsheltered, according to Watts. He pointed to the pandemic as a significant factor exacerbating the crisis, with more people entering homelessness than exiting it.
David Chapman, director of the shelter Resilience Montreal, suggested that the shopping mall may have grown frustrated with the increasing presence of unhoused individuals in the building.
However, he said the root problem lies in the city’s insufficient shelter spaces.
Simon Charron, a spokesperson for Mayor Valérie Plante, called the measures taken by Complexe Desjardins “questionable” and urged a more compassionate approach. “A humane approach to referring people to resources is to be preferred,” he said.
“This is further proof that the population is running out of steam in the face of the vulnerability crisis, of which Montreal is the epicentre.”
The Canadian Press contributed to this report.