Montreal is set to join other Canadian cities in offering a space where homeless people suffering from alcoholism can drink in a controlled environment.
The so-called “wet shelter” is part of a three-year, $7.8-million plan the city announced Wednesday to help its homeless population.
There is also a goal of building about 950 social housing units designed to help low-income people and others get off — and stay off — the street.
Serge Lareault, the city’s commissioner for the homeless, said the $7.8 million will be distributed to different community organizations that offer varying services to people who sleep outside.
The plan to build 950 housing units is an “objective,” he said, and the budget still needs to be negotiated with other levels of government.
Lareault said the wet shelter will be a pilot project modelled after similar centres in Europe, Australia and in Ottawa, where an alcohol-management program has been in place for 16 years.
Ottawa’s downtown program offers 24 beds and a service where the homeless can receive “15 pours” of white wine made in-house, between 7:30 a.m. and 9:30 p.m. every day, says Ray Macquatt, who manages another Ottawa facility called The Oaks.
The Oaks is wait-list only and has roughly 60 residents, with about 45 of them receiving an amount of white wine, tailored to their needs, 15 times a day, according to Macquatt. The centre serves up to 77 ounces, per day, per patient.
“The idea is not to get people intoxicated but to keep them stabilized and not to have them go in withdrawal,” he said.
Montreal conducted a census in 2015 of people living on the street, Lareault explained, and discovered that about 500 people sleep outside every night, with the vast majority having an alcohol, drug or mental health problem.