Montreal to open 500 new spaces in warming shelters for unhoused people

MONTREAL — The mayor of Montreal says the city’s homelessness crisis is “more serious than ever” and addressing it is her top priority.

“The crisis that we have in our hands right now in Montreal has never been seen before,” Soraya Martinez Ferrada told reporters at city hall on Monday. “If you talk to community organizations, numbers are skyrocketing in terms of homelessness in the street. So I think the challenge is huge.”

Martinez Ferrada, who was elected mayor last month, has promised to put an end to the homeless encampments that have cropped up across Montreal within four years by transitioning their occupants to housing. In the interim, however, she says the city will not dismantle tent cities.

On Monday, she outlined her government’s plan to help the city’s homeless population get through the winter, including by opening 500 new spaces in warming shelters by Christmas, on top of the nearly 2,500 that already exist. She said the new spaces will open at eight or nine sites around the city.

Montreal is also launching a new crisis unit to respond to the needs of the homeless population, Martinez Ferrada said. The team will include the mayor, city and public health officials and community organizations. It will meet weekly with a mandate to respond to urgent needs, she said, like getting sleeping bags and warmer tents to unhoused people for the winter.

The municipal government is also working on a protocol to ensure all of the city’s boroughs deal with homeless encampments in the same way. Claude Pinard, chairman of the executive committee, said the city will not dismantle encampments, but their occupants could be relocated if there are other options available to them and they want to leave.

“Each tent is a reminder that we have collectively failed as a society in what we must do,” he said. “The mission is clear: to improve the lives of everyone in Montreal, without exception. The long march toward dignity has begun.”

Last week, city workers destroyed a tent encampment in a northern borough of Montreal, in what the borough mayor – a member of Martinez Ferrada’s party – called a “misunderstanding.” The workers destroyed most of the belongings of the encampment’s occupants during what was supposed to be a cleanup of the site.

On Monday, Martinez Ferrada said the new protocol will establish a common approach to encampments across the city. “I think we have to work with all the partners to make sure that we have a protocol that everybody understands,” she said.

This summer, the results of a point-in-time count published by the federal government found there were 60,000 people experiencing homelessness in 74 communities across Canada in 2024 and early 2025. The report found the number of people experiencing homelessness had increased by 79 per cent since the previous survey between 2020 and 2022.

However, Quebec communities did not participate in the 2024 count.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 1, 2025.