ÉMMIS social workers will be deployed throughout Montreal

Photo: Mathieu Sparks Archives Ville de Montréal The Mobile Mediation and Social Intervention Team (ÉMMIS) was launched in 2021 in the Ville-Marie borough, initially as a pilot project.

Léo Mercier-Ross

Published at 3:24 p.m. Updated at 5:34 p.m.

• Montreal

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The social workers of the Mobile Mediation and Social Intervention Team (ÉMMIS) will be present in all boroughs of Montreal by 2025. ÉMMIS provides first-rate intervention in public spaces by defusing crisis and conflict situations, particularly with vulnerable people, such as homeless or intoxicated people. They intervene when the presence of the police is not necessary or in collaboration with the police.

Launched in 2021 in the Ville-Marie borough as a pilot project, the squad has since expanded its area of ​​operation to serve three other boroughs: Sud-Ouest, Plateau Mont-Royal and Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. In winter 2024, ÉMMIS extended its scope of intervention in the Montreal metro. “There are vulnerabilities that are increasingly present […]. It requires being proactive,” said Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante at a press conference on Tuesday.

“We’re seeing more homeless people, more mental health issues, more marginalized groups and more poverty,” says Ms. Plante. For her, even though ÉMMIS has “proven itself” and has “demonstrated that it has become essential to the ecosystem that ensures a sense of security,” the team cannot be the only answer. “There’s no magic wand. We have to work with stakeholders, groups on the ground and other levels of government,” says Valérie Plante.

According to her, “more systemic” solutions are needed. “Ultimately, a roof over your head is one of the keys,” she says.

The presence of ÉMMIS in the 19 boroughs of the metropolis will be gradual, starting with those who need it most, explained the mayor. The four boroughs where ÉMMIS already operates were those where the needs were greatest, she said. When ÉMMIS was created, the City indicated that extending the team’s services across its entire territory was in the plans. The team currently has 52 workers and more will be added in 2025 to meet new needs.

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To carry out the team’s mission, the City has surrounded itself with different organizations in order to offer services that are “true to the reality” of each borough while avoiding a “wall-to-wall” solution, notes Ms. Plante. The Équijustice organization is thus joining the Société de développement social (SDS), which has been leading the project with the City since 2021. The team currently has 52 SDS workers. In 2025, the ranks of ÉMMIS will grow to 90 workers to meet new needs. It is not the SDS that will provide these new members, but Équijustice and a third organization, whose identity is still unknown, which will take charge of the northeast of the island.

ÉMMIS will also expand the means available to Montrealers to contact its teams. Citizens will be able to dial 211 to request intervention as of “early 2025,” revealed Josefina Blancola, responsible for diversity and social inclusion on the executive committee of the City of Montreal. In 2023, 15% of requests to ÉMMIS came from the public and businesses, while 30% of calls came from the Montreal Police Department (SPVM), which redirects them to the team.

The Réseau d’aide aux personnes seules et itinérantes de Montréal (RAPSIM), which has criticized ÉMMIS in the past, says it has “mixed feelings” about the team’s presence, says Jérémie Lamarche, a community organizer with RAPSIM. The team’s 24-hour availability, their access to a car and the fact that they are not police officers are “interesting” aspects, according to Lamarche. However, “several aspects of ÉMMIS make us cringe.”

Among other things, the fact that the team “does not work for people experiencing homelessness, but in response to complaints from merchants, citizens and calls from the SPVM” is a problem according to RAPSIM. “If the person does not want to leave, the police will be deployed to force them to leave. So already there, it is not help that is provided without external constraints,” says Jérémie Lamarche.

Furthermore, according to Mr. Lamarche, the ÉMMIS often refers to resources “that are currently either non-existent, completely complete or that it does not accept the type of people who inhabit public spaces because they are members of the LGBTQ+ community, because they have animals, because they are in a relationship, because they consume substances, etc.”

The ÉMMIS is “a plaster that comes at the end of the line when people have fallen into the last few metres of the social wire,” he sums up.

The expansion of the ÉMMIS across the city is funded by the same $50 million — coming in equal parts from the City of Montreal and the Ministry of Public Security — that was announced in 2023 for a period of five years.