He was a heat wave, once again, during my last pilgrimage in “East”, in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.
I was not in the boic portion of “Homa”, with its wine bars and third wave cafes. But a little further south, on the edge of rue Notre-Dame, where dozens of homeless have planted their tents and spread out their bric-a-brac as far as the eye can see.
The heat was oppressive. The unfortunate campers struggled to cool off, next to the incessant traffic of heavy goods vehicles. The rare runners and cyclists observed this improvised village with circumspection.
Photo François Roy, Archives La Presse
The camp located on the edge of rue Notre-Dame, in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district
Jocelyne SĂ©nĂ©cal was waiting for me near there, at home. The 64 -year -old woman also experienced the homelessness, just a few years ago. She found herself on the street at the dawn of the sixties, during a “a little psychotic” episode.
Fruit of chance, his accommodation is a stone’s throw from the camp on rue Notre-Dame. If she was able to move there, it was thanks to an unprecedented program of mental health help, which would benefit from being extended.
Jocelyne Sénécal received me in the kitchen of her little three and a half, clean and well appointed.
Photo Robert Skinner, the press
Jocelyne Sénécal received our columnist in her accommodation, located very close to the camp along rue Notre-Dame.
She told me the main lines of her story. Its “major” depression in their twenties. Its 14 years at the magazine The routewhere she was director of human resources and social integration.
And its shift to the street, which coincided with the degradation of its mental health. A time when she was talking a lot to herself. She stopped paying her rent, with a predictable result: eviction.
She left “on the road” for a few months, to resume her expression. No big drug use, except occasional “speeds” to stay awake at night. “I was going to the parks, under the trees, I hid. »»
The quasi-sixty-year-old ended up in a women’s refuge: the Pavicia Mackenzie pavilion, from the Old Brewery mission. And this is where it was told about the PRISM (itineus and mental health reaffiliation project).
A program that was going to change his life.
I had already heard this acronym, Prism, but I had not dug the matter. It’s now done. My verdict: this is an example of efficiency, on its small scale. It shows what can be accomplished by dropping bureaucratic barriers between the health network and community groups.
This program has been tailor-made for the homeless struggling with psychiatric problems, who wish to rehabilitate. People who will not seek care at the hospital themselves, or who, if they try to go there, are returned home (on the street), for lack of resources.
How does it work? PRISM is like a mini-unit of psychiatric care, integrated into certain shelters for homeless. There are three in Montreal and one in Quebec. Each unit has an average of ten patients.
What they offer? Care 24 hours a day, for 8 to 12 weeks, provided by a multidisciplinary team. The structure is ultralight: a part -time psychiatrist, a nurse, a social worker and a worker of the accommodation organization.
Photo François Roy, the press
The CEO of the link, Sonia Côté
Patients, with serious disorders such as bipolarity, schizophrenia or severe depression, must agree to submit to a treatment plan. Their medication is calibrated over the weeks.
The speakers help them to clean up in their heads, but also in all their papers – tax declaration, social insurance, documents for the old age pension, etc.
All this in order to prepare their return to society.
Because this is one of the most interesting aspects of the PRISM: affordable accommodation is guaranteed to each participant at the end of the treatment. The Diogenic organization accompanies them in their research, until they find the pearl rare.
This is what allowed Jocelyne Sénécal to find his small apartment at $ 500 per month in Hochelaga, about a quarter of his income. “They had addresses to offer me. I visited two apartments and here it was the third. »»
The woman received a diagnosis of schizophrenia during her stay in the PRISM – which she always digests badly -, but she continues to see her shrink every month in external consultation, at the CLSC.
And this is another of the great qualities of this program: in addition to obtaining a lease in their name, the ex-sans-abi are also guaranteed long-term psychiatric monitoring. The risks of relapse are easier to identify – and to control – when you see your doctor every month.
The creation of the PRISM dates back to 2013, in the wake of the death of a homeless in crisis, killed in downtown Montreal. This event had highlighted the glaring lack of mental health resources for traveling customers.
The help was fragmented and scattered, and this is what we wanted to correct by creating the new program. The CIUSS, shelters and other community organizations were combined to design these new kind care units, which did not frame in any organization chart of the Ministry of Health.
“We have all the limits of our establishments, and together, we are able to smash them: it comes to get the best out of each of the elements,” explained Nathalie MĂ©nard, social worker and team leader, during a visit to a new unit in the link.
Photo François Roy, the press
The CEO of the link, Sonia side (in the foreground on the left) and the minister responsible for social services, Lionel Carmant (right), with some members of the PRISM team
This unit, located on a floor for women’s refuge, in the set-Mont-Royal, is the fourth of its kind in Quebec. I traveled it with the Minister responsible for social services, Lionel Carmant, who intends to extend the model elsewhere in the province.
The budget devoted to the PRISM was enhanced by 5.5 million this year. Openings are planned in Estrie, Outaouais, Lanaudière and elsewhere in Montreal, the minister told me.
The program has been the subject of an exhaustive scientific journal, and the results are at the endorsement. According to a study carried out in 2023, out of 50 people who participated in the PRISM, 43 completed their treatment. In number, 77 % resulted in housing, and 78 % engaged in psychiatric follow -up.
These people were 63 % still in their apartment a year later, with notable improvements in their quality of life and their functional level.
Not bad, right?
Twelve years after the launch of the PRISM, hundreds of homeless people, men and women, were able to benefit from it. The ideal would of course be thousands, but the resources, obviously, do not provide demand.
It is minimal, when you look at the current tidal wave of roaming. But they are still hundreds of people who no longer sleep in the street, and who have in many cases been “reaffiliated” to the company.
The primary objective of the case.