Montreal

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Montreal is a city of about 3.5 million people. Ten years ago, about 28,000 people used Montreal's shelters and food banks in one year. Current, accurate stats are hard to get - though estimates range anywhere from 10,000 to 30,000 people in the city have no fixed address. Montreal is famous for its freezing, snowy winters, but less known for how its shelters fill up to capacity and people with nowhere to go are turned away in this weather. Montreal is also famous for its many summer festivals, and less known for its laws ensuring that homeless people can be ticketed for loitering in "public" parks, and jailed for not paying these tickets. When festival season and tourists descend upon the city, these arrests go way up. At Homeless Nation, we suggest that more affordable housing might be a better long-term solution. Just sayin'.