Pilot project to help homeless in Montreal....good beginning!!

We will always have the poor and the homeless with us...is a common, conventional attitude. And, without saying it, the attitude continues in much the same way that one of the members of the federal Cabinet, yesterday, uttered the unthinkable...that it is not the government's responsibility to feed hungry children. Pandering to the conservative base that is horrified by any thought of the "nanny state" the minister was nevertheless quick to apologize, without retracting his core attitude.
Homelessness is so often a sociological category for so many other human dilemmas: mental illness, addictions, self-loathing, family break-up, unemployment, and of course, hopelessness. And, the homeless are often those whose human connections have completely dried up, because whoever knows their names and their stories will have nothing to do with them any more.
However, so long as there is no outreach coming from the society, from the missions, from the churches, from the hospitals, from the social service agencies, and even from the police, these people will remain on the street, foraging for food, searching for a cardboard refrigerator box for shelter, a phone booth, a highway overpass, and even, where they are available, a subway station. Some hold out a hat or a cup for passersby to toss their coins in, and some actually comply. More and more, passersby are without cash, given our plastic "money" culture, so it is both heart-warming and politically a little cutting edge, to read, once again at Christmas time, of a pilot project in Montreal through which missions are expanding their outreach to the homeless, meeting them in subway stations, and inviting them back to the shelter, in an overt, disciplined, documented and foundational attempt to begin to meet some of their basic needs. (see More help for the homeless at five downtown metro stations, From CTV website, December 16, 2013, below)
Is this initiative partly coming from the Pope's shining a spotlight on the issue of poverty and homeless in a world of "unfettered capitalism"?
Is this a sign, at least in Quebec, that the turn to the right, of the last two decades, is coming back to its collective senses?
Are we witnessing a project whose merit, once fully documented, can and will be adopted by other cities across Canada, and beyond, in order to balance both the rhetoric and the social policy that has for too long veered into the ditch of insouciance and narcissism?
We can only hope that, on this front, that is the issue of how governments and their social agencies address what has become, and threatens to explode into, a galloping cancer for which we all have some responsibility.
The mayor of Montreal says it is a matter of education, and not only education of the homeless but of all of us.
He is smack-on right, and how to implement the many learnings that  will be required in order to bring the culture, Montreal's along with every other city in North America and beyond, to the place where the spending of public dollars, public taxes, on similar projects is not only necessary but, in the long term, highly valuable and worthwhile.
There is wasted and neglected talent living in those bodies that can't or don't or won't find work, shelter, community and self-respect and we need those talents, and those contributions to the culture, as much for the maturing of the culture as for the reclamation of the lives currently being laid waste on the concrete and the shadows of our cities.
Unfortunately, there is a need for an integrated approach, bringing all the relevant disciplines to the table in order to  both design and to execute an effective strategy, including the business community, whose doors could easily and productively open to permit some of these people, when ready, to try to perform basic tasks.
It takes a village not only to raise a child, but also to raise those whose lives have become ship-wrecked on the rocks of despair. And Montreal is fashioning a worthy seed project.
We commend them for their courage, their insight and their convictions...and hope that their persistence will prove well placed.

More help for the homeless at five downtown metro stations
From CTV website, December 16, 2013

MONTREAL -- A pilot project top help the city's homeless is expanding.    

For the next three years, five downtown metro stations will double as service points for people living on the streets.
The project began with one outreach worker helping the homeless at the Place-des-Arts metro station. In the past year, more than 400 people have received much-needed services.

“I’ve been going into the metros twice a week, 10 hours a week and introducing myself to the people that I find in the metro who are obviously in need,” said Caitlin Murphy, who started the project.

Murphy is an outreach worker at St. Michael’s Mission, a downtown organization that's been helping Montreal's homeless for more than eight decades.
The people Murphy helps are often lacking even basic comforts, she said.
“I give them a pair of socks, which breaks the ice. I get to know them a little bit, and then hopefully, I bring them back to the mission to give them whatever they need - a coat, a pair of boots, a bowl of soup or an appointment to see a psychologist,” she said.
With many of the city's homeless suffering from serious mental health and addiction issues,  experts say access to medical and social services is key.
The idea of the metro outreach project is to point the homeless in the right direction, since they often don't know where to turn.
“Yes, they help me a lot. Yes, they do,” said one homeless man who uses the service.
The one-year pilot project at Place-des-Arts metro was so successful it's now expanding to four other metro stations: Atwater, Berri-UQAM, Bonaventure and McGill metros.
“We decided in fact to add two social workers and now we'll have three people who are going to work in five metro stations,” said Damien Stiles, executive director of the Ville-Marie Social Development Society.
The project involves several partners, including the STM and the Ville-Marie borough.
Those who work with the homeless say it's a positive step.

“These are important initiatives. I'm not criticizing them, I'm validating them, but much more needs to be done in terms of rallying resources and focusing resources I think,” said Matthew Pearce, director general of the Old Brewery Mission.
Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre agrees.
“It's a matter of awareness, it's a matter of education -- and I'm not talking about the homeless only, I'm talking to everybody,” he said.

Read more: http://montreal.ctvnews.ca/more-help-for-the-homeless-at-five-downtown-metro-stations-1.1596428#ixzz2njBb9E3e