A Montreal shelter is giving people a room of their own: ‘It’s just a sense of dignity’ [Video]

In his small room with a single bed, Rohit can hang his coat, charge his phone and store his clothes in a locker.

It’s not much, but it’s a start, he says, after struggling to find his footing in Quebec since arriving from India as a student in 2019.

“You can shut the door,” he said. “You have privacy.”

Only months ago, this same space was part of an open dormitory in a homeless shelter crammed with as many as 30 men in bunk beds.

Now, it has been divided into more than a dozen private and semi-private rooms, referred to by staff as “chambrettes.”

The same change has been made across the five floors of the Old Brewery Mission’s Webster Pavilion, Montreal’s largest emergency shelter for men.