Quebec City mayor calls on others to share anger at increase in homelessness

The mayor spoke at a summit on homelessness, following recent data that found the number of people experiencing homelessness had nearly doubled over four years in Quebec.

Quebec City Mayor Bruno Marchand says he wants the provincial and federal governments to feel the same anger he does when he sees just how many people in the province still have no place to live.

Marchand, who is also chair of the Union of Quebec Municipalities’ homelessness committee, spoke Friday at a UMQ summit on homelessness in Quebec City.

The gathering came on the heels of public health data released earlier this week that found the number of people experiencing homelessness had nearly doubled over four years in Quebec, now totalling 10,000.

“We have to be frustrated, we have to live with our anger and take it somewhere that will mobilize us to something better, somewhere like Finland,” he told reporters Friday.

A former president of the local branch of Centraide, Marchand has spent much of his career campaigning on the idea of eradicating homelessness entirely — a project he calls “itinérance zéro.”

He says he still believes achieving that goal is possible in the long term, but says it will take a lot more than money on the government’s part.

“We’re expecting in the weeks to come to have a plan — to have results, to have data,” he said.

Marchand wants to see the province develop a plan like Finland’s Housing First model, where people are provided with social housing before having to answer sensitive questions on addiction or mental health.