Unemployment
In the early twentieth century, unemployment was generally seen as a personal failure. The elites believed that a man who was fit for work should be capable of navigating the job market and providing for himself and his family. However, most workers experienced periods of unemployment of varying lengths.
The Canadian economy relied on a large pool of transient day labourers—often immigrants, bachelors, or men living away from their families—who worked at factories, ports, construction sites, and mines. Moving from job to job according to the rhythm of the economy, they often found themselves in cities (which served as transportation hubs) when unemployment struck. Local authorities found the presence of these out-of-work homeless men very troubling.
Turned away by most charitable organizations, such men often had no choice but to knock on the door of a police station or jail to ask if they could spend the night. A crackdown on vagrancy, squatting, and related activities—begging, loitering, living in parks, and jumping trains—effectively criminalized unemployment. And in the case of immigrant workers, unemployment could lead to deportation.
Reaching Out to the Community
Of course, migrant workers were not alone in experiencing stretches of unemployment. Many labourers faced the same challenge, especially during the economically sluggish winter months. When they could no longer rely on support from relatives, the unemployed and their families could turn to charitable home care organizations like the Catholic Saint-Vincent-de-Paul Society. They might ultimately be forced to place a child or a parent in an institution. Often, nuns or lay volunteers bearing wood, clothing, or food could be seen visiting homes in those communities hardest hit by cyclical unemployment.
Meanwhile, unemployed men who found themselves homeless could visit clothing depots for a few garments or a soup kitchen for a bite to eat. Every day, the soup kitchen run by the Sisters of Providence in Montreal’s Centre-Sud neighbourhood welcomed hundreds of out-of-work men during periods of widespread unemployment, such as the early 1930s.
Seeking Refuge
Various shelters offered temporary or interim housing for those seeking employment in industrial areas. Urban elites were especially concerned about the moral risks facing young adults who arrived directly from the Quebec countryside, often without a support network of any kind. In response, the YMCA and the YWCA established temporary shelters for young men and women in search of employment. Religious congregations in Quebec City and Montreal launched similar charitable initiatives. One such effort was St. Bridget’s Refuge, opened in 1869 by the Grey Nuns and that included care for the destitute elderly, shelter and employment referral for unemployed servants, and a night shelter for the homeless.
Other institutions, such as the French Union Nationale and the Italian Immigration and Aid Society, offered temporary housing to newcomers from their respective countries. This was also true of the St. Andrew’s Society, St. George’s Society, the Irish Protestant Benevolent Society, and the Anglican Church, all of which opened immigrant reception homes. However, most shelters provided temporary overnight accommodation to homeless unemployed men.
Shelters for Unemployed Protestants in Montreal
In 1863, the city’s Protestant elite opened the Montreal Protestant House of Industry and Refuge on Dorchester (René-Lévesque) and Bleury. The institution housed the elderly poor and the sick in the main building and ran a Night Refuge for the unemployed. The shelter was open all year but was used mainly in the winter. In exchange for several hours of work, men and a few women were provided with a bed, supper, and breakfast.
Despite this work test, the shelter’s conditions were extremely poor, reflecting the prevailing suspicion of the unemployed. The Board also operated a daily soup kitchen and the United Board of Outdoor Relief’s distribution center that provided food and fuel to families once a week. Several missions including the Old Brewery Mission (1890) and the Welcome Hall Mission (1890s) also worked with the homeless as well as poor families, as did the Salvation Army after it arrived in Montreal in 1884.
Shelters for the Unemployed in Quebec City
The Salvation Army, an evangelical Protestant organization established on Côte-du-Palais Street, opened one of Quebec City’s first overnight shelters for homeless, unemployed men in the 1890s. The facility aimed to reduce the number of out-of-work men held in jail. A few years later, the Saint-Vincent-de-Paul Association opened a shelter for unemployed Catholics on Côte-d’Abraham Street. It was only open during the winter months and had a rather precarious existence until its closure in 1913. Municipal authorities in Quebec City preferred to rely on religious institutions and the local jail, rather than follow Montreal’s example by building a municipal shelter.
Montreal’s Meurling Refuge
At the end of the nineteenth century, Montreal had a handful of shelters where homeless men could spend the night for a small fee. Then, in 1914, the City of Montreal opened its first public homeless shelter thanks to a bequest from businessman Gustave Meurling. Every night, a few hundred out-of-work men of all origins stayed at the Meurling Refuge. They would arrive at 6 p.m. to find a bed and leave at 7:45 a.m. the next day to look for work.
According to Albert Chevalier, Superintendent of Montreal’s Public Assistance Department, the shelter was more than just a social welfare institution of last resort. It also provided “a way of protecting society against the degradation, nuisance, and crime caused by those who would thereby become a burden not only on private individuals, but on society as a whole.”
Although men entered the Meurling Refuge of their own free will, it was not unlike a prison. The shelter was designed to be so unpleasant that it would only be used by men who were unemployed, starving, and exhausted. The facility followed a strict schedule and kept users under constant surveillance, providing no privacy whatsoever. In 1935, 654 men were crammed into two dormitories, each of which was equipped with more than 150 iron bunk beds. Morning and evening meals were limited to bread, jam, and coffee—along with a ration of bologna every other day.
The Great Depression of the 1930s
Canada was among the countries most affected by the Great Depression of the 1930s. The social welfare system, which depended on the ability of male breadwinners to provide for their dependents, proved completely inadequate. Although public authorities were aware of the problem, they were reluctant to do anything beyond taking temporary measures to shore up the existing system.
There was a fear that being too generous with public assistance would undermine the patriarchal structure of the family, create a culture of dependency among wage earners, and further devastate the labour market. Starting in the early 1930s, public works projects were introduced to provide employment for out-of-work married men with dependent children. Governments saw this type of assistance as a way of helping families struggling with unemployment while also maintaining their work ethic. Meanwhile, men who were unemployed, single, and homeless had to continue making do by sleeping in shelters.
Protests at the Vitré Street Refuge
When the Great Depression hit, out-of-work homeless men in Montreal were already being turned away from an overcrowded Meurling Refuge. City authorities therefore set about opening more shelters. The largest of these was the Vitré Street Refuge, which could accommodate nearly 2,000 unemployed men. In 1933, an unemployed workers’ rights committee condemned the facility’s unhygienic conditions, poor accommodations, and bad food—as well as the humiliating prison-like discipline it imposed.
In 1933, protests by the users of the Vitré Street Refuge gave way to rioting. The following winter, another group representing unemployed workers called for shelters to be replaced with direct relief. Fearing that shelters would become bastions of social revolution promoting the spread of communist propaganda, city authorities decided to close them all except for the Meurling Refuge.
The Valcartier Work Camp
In late 1932, the federal government began opening relief camps for out-of-work homeless men. Overseen by the Department of National Defence, the camps aimed to replace shelters, discourage social protest, and discipline the unemployed through work. Such goals would have been impossible to achieve inside crowded urban facilities. Camp residents were housed and fed in exchange for 44 hours of work per week. They also received a salary of 20 cents a day. One of these camps was established at the Valcartier military base, which became home to many former Vitré Street Shelter users.
The strict discipline nevertheless failed to prevent protests by unemployed men. Early in the summer of 1935, a strike movement began spreading across labour camps in Western Canada. Although the On-to-Ottawa Trek was violently quelled in Regina, some of the unemployed men at the Valcartier camp took part in a solidarity strike. Opposed by other camp residents, the strikers faced harsh reprisals. Mackenzie King’s federal government finally abandoned its repressive policy toward unemployed and homeless single men in 1936, at a time when the term “labour camp” was becoming synonymous with “ruthless dictatorship.”
Direct Relief
In addition to proving very costly, public works projects did little to address the problem of mass unemployment. As a result, authorities adopted a policy of public charity that provided emergency direct relief to the unemployed and their families. The weekly benefit was $5.50 for a family of five. This only partially covered the cost of food. In keeping with the principles of private charity, those who received assistance had to prove that they were of good moral character and accept the discretionary power of the local agencies responsible for administering relief.
In 1933 and 1934, more than 25% of Quebec’s urban population depended on direct relief. The shared experience of mass unemployment and the humiliation involved in seeking public charity fuelled demands for the recognition of social rights. Such appeals helped bring about the implementation of a federal unemployment insurance program in 1940.
