With less than two weeks before the October 5 election, the organization is urging parties and the incoming government to invest in prevention.
Montreal, September 23, 2026 – With Quebec’s provincial election less than two weeks away, Dans la rue is calling on political parties to make prevention the priority when it comes to youth homelessness. The organization wants the next government to treat preventing homelessness among youth aged 12 to 25 as a real budget commitment, rather than an issue it only addresses once hardship has already taken hold.
The data underscores the urgency of acting
In Quebec, more than 2,000 young people are estimated to be experiencing homelessness, not including hidden homelessness;
One in three youth
experiences an episode of homelessness after leaving the youth protection system (DPJ);
44% of homeless youth
report having been homeless for a full year;
40% of homeless youth
experienced their first episode of homelessness before the age of 16.
“Too often, discussions about homelessness focus on its visible consequences among adults. Yet a significant part of prevention takes place during youth,”
explains Cécile Arbaud, executive director of Dans la rue.
Providing support at the right moment can prevent a temporary episode of homelessness from becoming a chronic situation, with lasting consequences for both the young people affected and society as a whole.
A call issued in the middle of an election campaign
Dans la rue is calling on all parties and future elected officials to invest more in community organizations and to make youth homelessness prevention a genuine government priority. Preventing youth homelessness means acting before situations of vulnerability take root and turn into long-term paths of severe exclusion.
“You cannot claim to care about homelessness while ignoring what is happening to young people. Regardless of its political stripe, the next government must make youth homelessness prevention a real budgetary priority, not an empty promise repeated from one election campaign to the next,” says Cécile Arbaud.
This call is also part of Dans la rue’s annual awareness and fundraising campaign, running until December 2027. Its concept: well-known artists, including Isabelle Arsenault, Méphisto Bates, Francis Léveillé, Maxine Prévost, Kezna Dalz and Cath Laporte, meet with young people supported by the organization and draw them not as they are today, but as they imagine their future selves, a way of making visible a future that no photograph could capture.
About Dans la rue
Founded in 1988 by Father Emmett Johns, known as “Pops,” Dans la rue supports homeless and at-risk youth aged 12 to 25 in the greater Montreal area.
The organization works at every stage of precarity through a continuum of unique services: the Roulotte (mobile outreach van), the Bunker (emergency shelter), the Day Centre (including the Emmett Johns School), the Family Service, and Housing.
This on-the-ground presence allows the organization to act at the first signs of vulnerability, before young people fall into longer, harder-to-reverse paths of homelessness, and to give them the means to take charge of their lives and regain confidence in the future.
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