Policing of Homelessness and Opportunities for Reform in Montreal.

This article examines the perspectives of 24 police officers from the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) regarding their interactions with persons experiencing homelessness, focusing on causes of homelessness, policing roles, and attitudes toward reform. Officers acknowledged both individual factors (such as mental illness and substance use) and structural causes (including housing shortages and inadequate social services) as underlying homelessness, while expressing reliance on community-based organizations to support vulnerable individuals. They identified public demand, particularly 911 calls from housed residents, as a primary driver of police contact with homeless persons and a constraint on non-punitive interventions. Although officers supported expanding social welfare services and housing, they did not envision a policing role entirely absent from homelessness management, highlighting the complexity of reform efforts in this area.