'consequences are very dire' for unhoused quebecers after groups' funding is cut
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groups that assist unhoused people say they’re scrambling to figure out how they will continue providing services to their vulnerable clientele after being advised by the province in early march they’ll lose their funding as of march 31.
“the impact is very extreme,” said sally richmond, executive director of logifem, a montreal organization that provides shelter, transitional housing and support to women with and without children.
“the consequences are very dire on the ground.”
logifem and another organization that assists unhoused women in montreal, passages, are together losing more than $350,000 in program funding, richmond said.
the funding came from a federal program called reaching home (vers un chez-soi), which in quebec is managed by the province and federal government.
a call for applications for this financial year, which starts on april 1, was launched in december, and numerous groups found out in the first week of march programs that have been financed for years are not being renewed, richmond said.
there was less money to begin with for reaching home this year, she said. there was also greater demand, richmond said, in part because organizations are expanding services to respond to growing homelessness.
“for all of those reasons, the amount of requests greatly exceeded the amount of money available,” she said.
additionally, the ciusss du centre-sud-de-l’île-de-montréal, which is the regional co-ordinator for homelessness and manages the funding for reaching home on the island of montreal, decided to prioritize shelters, richmond said.
the logifem program that has been cut, which reaching home funded since 2022, offers equipment and support to women leaving a shelter to enter an apartment, including basic furniture, a gift card for groceries, cleaning supplies and access to an intervention worker for 18 months. the program has reached about 100 women a year, richmond said.
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“we wanted to make sure that people didn’t just leave the shelter and fall back into precariousness because they can’t furnish their apartment or they can’t buy food,” she said. for women who are scheduled to enter apartments in may, she said, they won’t have “anywhere to sleep, anywhere to sit.”
meanwhile, passages has lost its funding for a program that has operated for 19 years and that supports vulnerable women to remain in housing, richmond said.
another group that works with unhoused men and women in montreal says it not only lost its funding from reaching home, but also from a second program, plan de réponse communautaire aux campements.
centre d’écoute et d’intervention face à face was able to fund three full-time intervention workers with the funding that is now getting cut, said namita chandel, who writes grant proposals for the organization.
“it’s coming at such a critical point when already the level of funding that we were receiving was barely enough to stay afloat to meet the surging demand that we’ve seen in recent years,” she said, adding the effects of the funding cuts will be “disastrous.”
the group’s services include a housing search for people with no internet and who are isolated. chandel said the 211 telephone service in montreal, which refers citizens to community organizations and public services and programs, has told face à face it’s among its top organizations for direct referrals.
with its funding cut, it’s unclear how many full- and part-time positions will get cut, she said. “there’s no way we can meet the demand of our clients.”
the group also offers a mailbox service, providing an address so unhoused people can receive social aid and pension cheques. the organization has 1,200 to 1,300 people using that service alone, chandel said, adding the number has tripled from 450 clients in 2021.
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chandel said she’s aware the funding priority of ciusss favoured temporary shelters this year. shelters “are important,” she said, “but at the same time, it’s almost like putting a bandage over the main issue. i would even be more sympathetic if the money were going primarily to building social housing or (another) long-term solution.”
logifem’s richmond said funding services that prevent homelessness and help people get out of homelessness costs less than funding shelters.
“if through these programs we’re able to keep people housed, it’s much more cost-effective than creating shelter spaces,” she said.
logifem and passages are among nine members of a coalition of organizations that support homeless women, called partenariat pour la prevention et la lutte contre l’itinérance des femmes. among its demands, the coalition is calling on the government to reinstate funding for programs that were not renewed under reaching home. it’s also calling on all levels of government to consider the specific needs of women, including women with children, when deciding on funding for unhoused people.
“we believe women’s homelessness is underestimated and underfunded and part of that is because of the invisible nature of women’s homelessness,” richmond said. women will avoid being on the street, she said, but sacrifice their safety by staying in unsanitary housing or staying with a violent partner.
two other organizations in the coalition — le chaînon and les maisons de l’ancre — weren’t cut by reaching home, but are dealing with insufficient funding, she said.
le chaînon still has no government financing for a program that provides 21 places for women in emergency shelters, richmond said.
maisons de l’ancre is constructing a new shelter in montreal with government funding, however, the government has committed only half of the funding needed to staff and run the shelter once it opens in january 2027, she said. the shelter will only be able to operate 12 out of 24 rooms, she said.
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in the long term, richmond said she’d like to see the government change its approach to funding individual projects for a year or two, which forces groups to continually reapply. instead, she said, it should offer long-term funding for missions and programs.
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