Montreal homeless encampment dismantled to move ’50 metres farther’ [Video]

Yellow bulldozers, police officers and workers in orange vests dismantled a homeless encampment along Notre-Dame Street East in Montreal’s Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough Monday morning.

A group of protesters stood behind police tape chanting “shame” as tents, mattresses and other personal belongings of those who lived at the encampment were piled into garbage trucks.

Signs saying “this is our only home” and “decriminalize survival” were hung around the area.

“It’s so absurd because they’re dismantling all this just to ask them to go 50 metres farther. It’s unacceptable,” said Guillaume Groleau with the homeless advocacy group Refus Local. “There is no more space in shelters and in emergency warming tents, where the hell do they want these people to go? These people just want community. There was a sense of community and help between these people, so why are we destroying this?”

People living in the homeless encampment along Notre-Dame Street were …