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Ricochet Centre was forced to close at end of May and several residents had to camp in the woods around Pierrefonds.
Sarah-Jane Boivin, left, communications manager at Ricochet Centre, the only homeless shelter between downtown Montreal and Vaudreuil, walks with resident Marie-France Dubuc at the new location in Pierrefonds on Thursday. Ricochet relocated after being forced to close its doors in May. Photo by John Kenney /Montreal Gazette
The West Island’s only emergency shelter for the unhoused, which was forced to close its doors last May and distribute tents to residents with nowhere else to go, has found a new lease on life in Pierrefonds, but only temporarily.
The Ricochet Centre has relocated to Gouin Blvd., close to Highway 13, in the ornate former site of the Ignatian Spirituality Centre of Montreal on the banks of the Rivière des Prairies. Located in a stone-walled building built in 1900 that features wood floors, stained glass windows and expansive lawns, the centre has space for 48 residents in 12 rooms equipped with bunk beds and single beds.
About 50 clients had to leave the former premises on May 29 when the shelter that had operated in the same location for three and half years had to cede the property back to the regional health board that owns the building. The CIUSSS de l’Ouest-de-l’Île de Montréal had announced months before it was taking back the site to convert it into a centre offering youth services.
On the day it closed, Ricochet distributed emergency kits that included sleeping bags, tents, sleeping pads and backpacks. Some residents found rooms in shelters in downtown Montreal. Others, like Marie-France Dubuc, who had lived most of her life in the West Island, were not comfortable moving 20 kilometres away to an anonymous shelter in the city.
Dubuc took a tent and her belongings and found a place to sleep under a tree in the woods behind the closed shelter. She stayed there for a month. Psychosocial workers with Ricochet brought her food and water and made sure she was OK. At 50 years old, Dubuc, who had never stayed in a tent before, found herself “wilderness camping in Pierrefonds.”
When she was forced to leave by a security firm, she slept in her sleeping bag on the balcony of a 74-year-old friend who had a one-and-a-half-room apartment. She put up plastic sheeting to shield herself from the rain. But her friend had drug issues, so she had to leave, Dubuc said.
“I tried to look for lodging, and I cried over what my life had become,” Dubuc said. She had lived at Ricochet for nearly two years after her landlord threw her and several other tenants out to do renovations, she said. Dubuc lost all of her furniture, her new washer/dryer and her two cats.
Marie-France Dubuc looks out the window of her room at Ricochet Centre on the grounds of the former Ignatian Spiritual Centre on Gouin Blvd. Photo by John Kenney /Montreal Gazette
“When I first arrived here, I was demolished,” said Dubuc, who has a room in Ricochet’s new location she shares with one other woman. “I was nearly dead. I no longer had the will to fight.
“Today, I feel strong enough to help others and volunteer, and to take care of myself.”
While it was closed, the centre ran shuttle buses from the West Island to shelters in the city to provide lodging. It also provided meals and services two days a week from the Westview Bible Church. Ricochet is the only emergency shelter operating between downtown Montreal and Vaudreuil-Dorion, an expanse of about 40 km.
‘’It’s good news for Ricochet, but there never should have been a two-month gap in services for people experiencing homelessness in the West Island,” said Benoit Langevin, a spokesperson on the unhoused for opposition party Ensemble Montréal and city councillor for the Bois-de-Liesse district in Pierrefonds-Roxboro. “All it did was generate more encampments.”
Langevin called it another example of the city administration’s inability to plan ahead to ensure lodging for those in need.
“Most of the people who are here now have been chronically homeless for many years,” said Caterina Modica-Amore, programs and projects co-ordinator for Ricochet. “Most are from the West Island.”
About 80 per cent of the residents are men, with the average age between 30 and 40 years old. The new location, which reopened on July 8, is currently about half-full. As word of mouth spreads, Modica-Amore expects that to change.
“At the old shelter we were refusing people every night. It’s going to come to that.”
Residents can stay for up to 30 days. After that they have to spend at least 10 days somewhere else to encourage them to look for permanent lodgings. With about 30 staff members as well as volunteers who help with cooking meals, the centre can now stay open 24 hours a day, allowing residents to stay on the premises during the day, and use facilities like computers and the telephones to look for work or lodging. They also have access to social workers and medical aid.
The space had been used by the YMCA for the past two years to house Ukrainian refugees, but was no longer needed. Ricochet signed a one-year lease at the new location. The building and its land is up for sale, however. If anyone buys it, Ricochet will have 90 days to vacate.
Ricochet has been looking for a permanent location for years, but costs are high and options limited, said Sarah-Jane Boivin, communications manager for the centre. The centre is mostly funded through private donations, along with help from organizations like Moisson Montréal, Centraide, food donated by local businesses like Pharmaprix and Starbucks, and volunteer aid from community groups, like “the Catholic Church ladies” who prepare several meals for residents.
“There’s homelessness in the West Island,” Boivin said. “Usually, we just don’t see them because people don’t want to be seen as homeless people. But there’s a lot of hidden homelessness here. We can see it because the majority of people coming here are from the West Island.”
Coleen Wilson (back to camera) speaks with Rebecca, a psychosocial worker at Ricochet Centre, the only homeless shelter between downtown Montreal and Vaudreuil, at the new location in the Pierrefonds area of Montreal Thursday, July 25, 2024. They were forced to close the doors at its old location last month. Photo by John Kenney /Montreal Gazette
For now, residents and administrators are thankful to have found refuge in a space that was historically used as a spiritual getaway — a tranquil setting “where the rest of the world can stop, and you can focus on yourself,” Modica-Amore said.
With access to social workers, psychological help and healthy living conditions, Dubuc is confident she’ll be able to find a place of her own, close to an area she thinks of as home.
“I’ve been in the West Island since I was 10,” she said. “I have good memories of this place. I have friends here.”