In the Plateau-Mont-Royal, since 1993!
Fixed site
Fixed site is a facility that distributes and collects prevention and protection equipment intended for harm reduction and to prevent STBBIs. The site also provides resources for overdose prevention.
Intervention workers offer participants a warm welcome and individualized psychosocial support services.
Street Work
365 days a year, street workers meet people exactly where they are at: on the streets, in alleys, in parks, in the metro, in apartments and in other organizations. To reach target populations and meet their needs, they base their interventions on three guiding principles: consistent presence, creating meaningful relationships and empowering individuals. . Street workers are there to listen, offer support, discuss, refer and accompany people on a voluntary and confidential basis.
There are 3 street work programs:
- The PWIID (people who inject or inhale drugs) program
- The homeless or at risk of homelessness program
- The Indigenous peoples experiencing homelessness program
Social Mediation
The mission of Plein Milieu’s social mediation service is to help people live together and share urban space on the Plateau-Mont-Royal. To achieve this, it focuses on four main areas:
- Mediation with shop owners
- Mediation with housed and non-housed Plateau-Mont-Royal residents
- L’Oranger, a solidarity-based project
- The Entre les Mailles workshop
Our actions are based first and foremost on listening and creating links, and it is through relationships that we set up mediation actions to support all parties involved in the various issues of cohabitation.
Shop owners mediation
The goal of mediation with shop owners is to facilitate cohabitation between homeless people and shops. We are therefore in contact with various merchants’ associations and commercial development corporations (SDCs). When a shop owner is faced with cohabitation issues, they can send a request for support to the SDC or their association and the latter will ask us to meet with them or contact us directly.
In both cases, we begin by meeting the person requesting support, to understand the situation. Then we meet with the people experiencing homelessness. We want to make both parties aware of each other’s realities, and to find common ground while respecting each other.
We also support organizers of events in the public space who ask us to help them set up and develop their events, so that they take into account all the people using the space and make sure the events are truly inclusive for all.
Mediation for housed and non-housed residents
Our mediation services are offered to housed and non-housed people, as well as all Plateau-Mont-Royal neighborhood stakeholders experiencing cohabitation issues concerning the occupation of public and/or private space and/or the use of drugs in these same spaces.
Our role and objective are to facilitate communication between all parties involved, to inform, to implement concerted and adapted actions aimed at facilitating cohabitation and the use of public spaces and infrastructures in the neighborhood. Our presence on the ground, our partnerships and our relationships of trust with the marginalized populations of the neighbourhood enables us to contribute greatly to the implementation of solutions and to foster better general cohabitation between all citizens occupying the Plateau-Mont-Royal.
The workshop Entre les mailles
As described above, we intervene in situations where cohabitation is a concern. This learning experience has enabled us to set up a 3-hour awareness-raising and exchange workshop for a variety of groups: community, public or municipal organizations, groups of housed citizens (e.g. housing cooperatives), etc. This workshop enables us to intervene in situations where there are concerns about cohabitation.
This workshop enables us to intervene from a prevention perspective, as we address different ways of relating to people experiencing homelessness in a respectful manner and encourage participants to reflect on their posture and the way they interact with unhoused people occupying public or private spaces.
L’Oranger
L’Oranger is asolidarity based project aimed at giving homeless people in the Plateau-Mont-Royal access to services they consider essential. This network is growing everyday thanks to the businesses that join us.
How it works:
It all starts with canvassing shops, making them aware of the realities of homelessness in the Plateau-Mont-Royal, and therefore of the need for l’Oranger project. To do this, we work in trios, with one outreach worker accompanied by two peer workers. By combining the knowledge and experience of eachmember of our teams, we can provide targeted support tailored to each situation.
A l’Oranger member displays a sticker representing an orange tree in their entrance, around which they indicate the services they offer free of charge to anyone who requests them. We then follow up with employees to support them in setting up the project.
Services
When they join l’Oranger, shop owners commit to offering the following services: access to water, a place to warm up or cool down, access to toilets, a place to rest, access to WiFi, the possibility of reheating food, “ pay it forward meals ” , paid services, the possibility of charging your phone, access to a secure area.
Messengers
The Street Messengers is a program based on peer participation. The team patrols the territory to distribute and retrieve prevention equipment. The messengers also collect syringes in alleyways and refer people to services offered by the organization.
Plein Logis
Plein Logis is a housing integration and support project for individuals who have experienced chronic homelessness. The project is centred on the Housing First and on the Recovery approaches. Its goal is to support participants in stabilizing their situation in order to sustain housing.
Participants are guided in the improvement of their living conditions and acquire autonomy so they can continue living in stability once the project comes to an end. This project relies on renewable funding. The program has currently reached full capacity and is no longer accepting new applications.
