Authorities are urging tolerance toward unhoused people and co-operation from libraries, businesses and métro station employees.
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When Serge was discharged from a Montreal hospital this week, he knew he faced two certainties: He had nowhere to stay, he says, and an oppressive heat was bearing down on the city.
Unhoused for the last year, he managed to secure a one-person tent and pitched it under a tree in La Fontaine Park. He sweat through the first night only to wake up to even higher temperatures.
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He now hopes to find a cooler nook near the water in Rivière-des-Prairies, but while battling early emphysema and asthma, he doesn’t think he can handle the trip by public transit in this heat.
“I’m having a hell of a hard time,” said the 66-year-old, who asked that his last name not be published. “In the heat like this, it’s hard for me to breathe.”
As a severe heat wave descended on Montreal this week, authorities are reminding people the heat can be deadly and are calling for tolerance toward the unhoused, who are among those most at risk to suffer.
The city’s mobile intervention team and police department have increased street patrols to keep an eye out for anyone struggling with the spike in temperatures.
Teams will also make sure unhoused people have a list of shelters that have accessible air conditioning, and patrols will be distributing water bottles across the city.
“If we want to support them during a heat wave, then tolerance is the main message,” Montreal public health’s Dr. David Kaiser said of unhoused people this week, urging co-operation from libraries, businesses and métro station employees.
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At the Old Brewery Mission on Wednesday afternoon, one of the busiest shelters in the city, people could be seen filing in and out of its 24-hour café in search of cool air and refreshments.
The shelter’s team has kept busy distributing water, ice cream and ice pops to anyone in need and encouraging people to come in to take showers and freshen up in the air conditioning.
Dominic Bombardier, an intervention worker with the shelter, did rounds outside every half hour to ensure no one had passed out in the sun or showed signs of heat-related symptoms.
“We make sure they’re hydrated and help them understand it’s going to be really hot,” Bombardier said. “I think everyone understands the danger, but depending on their state, they need reminders.”
Ronald Bray, 54, has been staying at the shelter for the last 19 months after being evicted from his apartment. He has spent the last few days doing volunteer tasks in the basement so he can stay cool.
He said he fears for those who either can’t find a place in a shelter during the heat wave or refuse to use the services.
“I think some people don’t realize how dangerous it really is, but they also don’t have any other place to go,” Bray said. “It breaks my heart.”
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Mathieu, who has been unhoused on and off since last July, described the heat as “an added obstacle to how difficult life on the street already is.”
“It complicates things,” he said from the mission’s cafeteria, adding that most people he knows on the street are visiting shelters this week to escape the heat.
“But there’s another category of people who will refuse any help, and I think that’s when it’s dangerous,” he added. “It’s the same issue we see during cold snaps in the winter.”
More than 60 people died in Montreal during a week-long heat wave in 2018, filling the city’s morgue to capacity. Eighty per cent of the victims died alone at home.
The city’s public health department said this week it’s confident it can avoid a repeat of that year but acknowledged any prolonged heat can bring severe consequences.
Bombardier, the intervention worker at the Old Brewery Mission, said the prospect of people dying from the heat is also top of mind among the unhoused community this week.
He has tried as much as possible to warn people to limit their drug or alcohol consumption and avoid prolonged stays in the sun, but the possibility still weighs on him.
“It’s a concern we have all year long,” Bombardier said of people dying. “But, of course, when it’s hot like this, we’re all on high alert.”
jfeith@postmedia.com
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