Montrealers who extensively stroll the streets of the city are well aware of the homeless crisis as they pass by tent cities and groups of individuals in terrible physical shape, some even bent over from excessive use of drugs and alcohol, or other factors.<\/p>\n
But what many Montrealers do not see is what is taking place indoors, on private property. Homeless individuals squatting, urinating, defecating, taking drugs \u2014 even taking part in sexual activity.<\/p>\n
The situation has become so dire that it has prompted Peter Sergakis, one of Montreal\u2019s most prominent property owners and entrepreneurs, as well as president of the Quebec Bar Owners Union, to write to Montreal mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada, demanding humanitarian action.<\/p>\n
The crisis has affected Sergakis personally. He wrote to Ferrada that \u201cover the past year, not a single week has gone by without me having to deal with an assault, a break-in, threats, fear, vandalism, mischief, theft, and incivility at one of my businesses or in one of my buildings occupied by commercial and residential tenants.\u201d<\/p>\n
Very recently, on April 28, he points out, the Montreal fire department had to be called to put out a fire that had been set at one of his buildings, located at 1310 Alexandre de S\u00e9ve.<\/p>\n
\u201cFortunately, the fire was extinguished thanks to the vigilance of my tenants. This will not always be the case.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sergakis is calling for an end to talk and inaction on this issue by a succession of municipal governments, and for concrete measures to be taken.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s getting worse every day,\u201d Sergakis told The Suburban during an interview last week at his Brasserie Le Manoir in Pointe-Claire. His letter to the mayor cites statistics indicating that there are 6,000 homeless people in Montreal, and adds that the crisis has been exacerbated by the recent extension of the ban on loitering in the Montreal Metro, till the end of April 2027.<\/p>\n
The businessman says the STM policy has shifted the problem of homelessness onto others, including property owners, and that this goes against the principle of a 2025 Superior Court decision recognizing the \u201cright of people experiencing homelessness to seek shelter outdoors on public land when state or community resources are lacking or insufficient.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sergakis told The Suburban that as a result of the STM loitering ban, many homeless \u201ctook over buildings to stay because it was cold outside or they needed a place to sleep.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are in trouble. They\u2019re causing so much damage, and somebody has to take care of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sergakis said Ferrada had promised to take care of the homeless situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s worse than before. She says \u2018watch me a few years from now.\u2019 That\u2019s what Plante was telling us. I don\u2019t want to wait three, four years more. Things have to happen now. These people have to be taken care of.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sergakis wrote in his letter that it is the city and the mayor\u2019s responsibility, and not that of citizens, to \u201ctake all necessary steps to assist vulnerable people and to implement concrete measures to contain this humanitarian crisis, which is having devastating consequences for these individuals and for Montrealers.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs citizens, we are witnessing your inaction and your failure to address this dire situation, which is having catastrophic effects on public health and the safety of individuals and their property,\u201d as well as the reputation of the city. \u201cMontreal is powerless and ineffective when it comes to providing frontline housing and\/or services tailored to the needs of the homeless even though the city owns and manages a portfolio of rental properties that could be put to use to address the issue. If you don\u2019t know how to manage a real estate portfolio, it is your responsibility to entrust its management to people who can do so.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sergakis told The Suburban, \u201dMontreal, the metropolis of Quebec, has to be better. We have to provide services. These are human beings. They need help.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sergakis said one example of concrete action is a government-funded hotel he recently visited, which helps members of the Inuit community, who represent a large portion of the homeless in Montreal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have a restaurant providing food for them, with a seating capacity of 200 people. They have meals to eat, and they\u2019re happy. They have small rooms in which to live. They have doctors. They have security, and those people are off the sidewalks, and out of the Metro. That\u2019s what we need.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sergakis is proposing that the city should devote part of its total budget, and also ask the provincial and federal governments to contribute, \u201cso we can take care of those people the same way. Build more spaces like that, or build spaces with small rooms so they can live. These people are dying on the sidewalks!<\/p>\n
\u201cFind them jobs and apartments in which to live. You can\u2019t leave them alone, because they might fall prey again to alcohol and drugs. We need to spend more funds here. We cannot continue like this. It\u2019s unacceptable. We need permanent solutions that make sense!\u201d<\/p>\n
We also spoke about the mayor recently weeping in reaction to some homeless individuals who froze to death.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan I tell you something?\u201d Sergakis says. \u201cWe don\u2019t need somebody to cry. That\u2019s not how you solve problems. We need action!\u201d n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Montrealers who extensively stroll the streets of the city are well aware of the homeless crisis as they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43441,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[19092,2086,19091,19093,50,113,19094,6417,1756],"class_list":["post-43440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-apartment","tag-homelessness","tag-landlord","tag-leasehold-estate","tag-montreal","tag-politics","tag-renting","tag-social-issues","tag-tax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}