Tenants and community groups in Montreal’s Parc-Extension borough gathered for a vigil Tuesday evening to honour and remember the life of Manjeet Singh, a 42-year-old unhoused migrant, who died earlier this year – after he was evicted from his home.
“He was an asylum seeker. He was alone here. His family is still back in India. He has a wife there, parents, siblings, and he has two minor children, a boy and a girl,” said Sohnia Karamad Ali, a community organizer with Committée d’Action de Parc-Extension, as she remembered what Singh meant to others and how many will miss him.
“After this funeral, we all decided together since his family is not here. So, on behalf of them, we decided we will organize a vigil so that this tragic death should not go unnoticed,” added Karamad Ali.
The vigil was organized in front of the Accès Montréal Office just ahead of the Villeray-Saint-Michel-Parc-Extension borough council meeting, where organizers said they hoped borough and city officials were listening to their calls asking for more support and the addition of concrete measures for migrant tenants.
According to those who knew him, Singh was found unresponsive in the street, dying in hospital shortly after, on January 16, and they say Singh’s case is far from an isolated one.
“There were recently three deaths in Park Extension, and the reality here in Park is not that unique. We know that this housing crisis is established. It’s a real fact across Canada, across Quebec, even in the region, not just in Montreal,” said Karamad Ali.
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Amy Darwish, a coordinator with Committée d’Action de Parc-Extension, said, “Many migrant tenants in Park X are facing increasingly tenuous situations, the rents have really spiraled out of control in recent years. More and more people, even if they manage to find a place, end up losing it because of evictions.”
Adding, “For a lot of people, what this often means is that they end up in room-sharing situations where they’re not on the lease, they’re just renting a room or renting a bed in a room in some instances, and this gives them very few rights and protections. This was what happened to Manjeet that he ended up being kicked out at a moment’s notice and had absolutely no recourse in his situation.”
And now with Canada’s new immigration and asylum measures from Bill C-12 – which was passed into law late last month – organizers are saying these new eligibility requirements could cause a number of migrant tenants to find themselves undocumented and in increasingly precarious situations.
“It’s going to be devastating for many tenants. We’re expecting that more tenants will find themselves, you know, becoming undocumented, people won’t be able to renew their work permits, people won’t be able to access welfare income support, people won’t be able to find work,” said Darwish.
Darwish went on to explain that migrant tenants who don’t have permanent residence are systematically cut off from any kind of measure that could help them rehouse themselves. They can’t even access subsidized social housing, which she said is a major factor for why there’s an increase in people ending up on the street.
In the hopes to decrease the number of migrant tenants facing eviction like Singh did, Darwish says they’ve already got a list of demands that could easily be implemented, that would negate situations such as the one faced by Singh that ultimately cost him his life.
“His death was preventable and avoidable. He wouldn’t have died if the place that he had taken refuge hadn’t been closed. He wouldn’t, probably wouldn’t have died if there were shelters and warming centers in the neighborhood,” said Darwish.
“He wouldn’t have died if there was social housing. He wouldn’t have died if there was a regularization program in place and he hadn’t become, you know, he hadn’t become undocumented in the first place.”
