MONTREAL —
The City of Montreal is set to take over a downtown hotel to house hundreds of homeless people this winter, creating the city’s bigger shelter by far, CTV has confirmed.
A formal announcement is set for Thursday. The deal means the hotel, which hasn’t yet been named, will get funding in order to give over its rooms until March 31.
The hotel is currently an active hotel, not a vacant property. The facility will be run by the Welcome Hall Mission.
The plan, according to a source who has been working on the file, is to put dividers in each of its rooms and therefore house two people per room.
That will create spots for 380 homeless Montrealers.
By comparison, the Macaulay men’s shelter at the Welcome Hall Mission has 110 spots, the old Royal Victoria Hospital, which has been in use since last winter, can house 175, and other shelters are significantly smaller.
The hotel’s public funding will come from the local health authority.
The announcement, slated for Thursday at 1 p.m., will include other new plans for winter resources for the homeless.
Earlier this year, when COVID-19 first hit Canada, Toronto leased hotels to provide emergency housing for homeless Torontonians as well.
