Montreal shelter that serves Inuit might be moving

David Chapman, director of the Open Door shelter in Montreal, in the current church they occupy, St. Stephen’s, with two women who frequent the shelter for food or to sleep in the pews. (PHOTO BY COURTNEY EDGAR)

SPECIAL TO NUNATSIAQ NEWS

MONTREAL—The Montreal day shelter Open Door may find a new home in the next few months.

Although currently operating out of the same St. Stephen’s Church location on Atwater Avenue that they have rented for more than 20 years, the church’s new owners gave Open Door notice that they would have to vacate by the end of July.

Since getting the news, staff at the shelter—which offers a place to sleep, eat and access social services near Cabot Square for a mostly indigenous and Inuit clientele—have been busy searching for a new home.

Now, after bi-weekly meetings with community partners, David Chapman, the director of Open Door, said they are close to finding a potential location where renters are willing to consider leasing to a day shelter.

That’s the biggest hurdle: finding neighbourhood sympathy and support for a place that serves an impoverished clientele.

Some city officials and local police stations were opposed to their relocation.

“We’ll often get great support from stations in the neighbourhoods where we’re not,” Chapman said.

“But unfortunately when it comes right down to it, it is hard to get people to agree to have something like what we’re doing in their backyard. It doesn’t bring up the value of their properties. It means a certain will to be patient with some of the struggling human beings who would be in their area.”

So the Open Door has been lucky to find a new church that is willing to rent to them, he says, but there are still some hurdles to get over.

The lease hasn’t yet been signed and they are still negotiating an agreement on rental cost and required renovations, so Chapman is not revealing the location just yet. The City of Montreal also must approve a day centre being located in the area.

“It is on a street that is one of the more well-to do streets in the neighbourhood,” Chapman said. “So there is some concern that some of the neighbours might not be too happy about it.”

But the potential new location is just a few blocks away from where they are now.

Despite that, the rent will probably be close to double what it has been at St. Stephen’s Church, Chapman said. Still, he said he remains hopeful the deal will be finalized in the next few weeks.

Chapman is working on extending their stay at St. Stephen’s until Jan. 1, 2018, so that if the new premises work out, there will be enough time to get it ready to house Open Door.

“There would need to be some renovations,” Chapman said. “We would need to put in some offices and reconfigure the floor space in the main eating area.”

He said they are working with Atelier Habitation Montreal, the same group that helped redesign the new Projet Autochtones de Quebec building a few years ago.

Then they need to find a way to pay for everything.

Chapman said they are trying to find transitional funding since the move and renos will likely cost, “a few 100,000 dollars.”

“In order to move to the new location, we would need to alter the location first and also we would need to hire some extra intervention workers who would come up to this region and redirect people to the new location,” Chapman said.

He said he also wants to hire people during the transition to walk around the Cabot Square area, speaking to people on the streets, letting them know where the new Open Door is and offering to walk them there if they are interested.

“We could write an address saying this is where we are,” Chapman said. “But we’ve got folks here who can’t read. We’ve got folks here whose eye sight is poor.”

Despite the challenges, he is optimistic everything will fall into place—because it has to, he said.

“We are working with people who we can’t just send to other shelters,” Chapman said.