by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

Paula Stewart has seen the doors slam in the face of schizophrenics, depressives and other mentally ill Montrealers searching for digs. "Sometimes we know there's a room to rent but landlords will say it's all rented out, or else sometimes they'll try to jack up prices. Landlords will try all sorts of things," says Stewart, a community housing worker at Verdun-based Project PAL (Programme d'aide au logement).

In a low-vacancy era where multiple applicants compete for limited apartments, the mentally ill are plagued with a whole world of trouble finding shelter.

Even Stewart's commitment to supervise relations between the landlord and tenant often doesn't budge closed minds. "We help smooth things over by collecting rents from the tenant and monitoring their behaviour and making sure there are no problems," she says. "But we still get landlords telling us that the place is rented even though we know it's not. Landlords think they'll paint the walls black, bring drugs in and not take care of themselves. There's a lot of misconceptions and prejudice against people with mental health issues."

And costlier overall rents translate into suffering for the mentally ill. "Some are paying for their medication and after that are starving themselves," she says. "Some aren't even buying their medication, which is even worse."

None of these habits do much to seduce would-be landlords. "In a period when even able-bodied healthy people are having difficulty finding housing, it's particularly hard for these people who sometimes can't express themselves or can't be understood because they're on heavy medication or aren't eating properly," says Stewart.

Project PAL also offers the mentally ill a drop-in centre, six transition units where adults can stay up to six months, as well as a sixplex which they rent out to clients. But the demand far outstrips their ability to supply housing.

The lack of dwellings has forced some mentally afflicted to live in filth. "We've seen numerous situations where people are unhappy with their living arrangements but are forced to stay because of the chronic lack of other places to move to," says Stewart's colleague John Harvey. "The health minister could resolve this problem and it wouldn't cost that much."

Harvey proposes that the provincial government order more rigorous inspections of privately run homes for the mentally ill. "Anybody could open up a private resource for people with mental health problems and charge whatever they want and run it how they like," he says. "We've seen a lot of abuses in privately run places like that."

He also argues that the mentally ill should be given priority over other citizens in getting government-subsidized housing units.

He's not alone in thinking so. "I couldn't agree more," says James Hughes, the executive director of the Old Brewery Mission. He estimates that up to 40 per cent of the Mission's homeless clientele suffer from mental illness. "There's a crying need for that kind of supportive housing for this clientele."

Hughes would also like to hire more professionals to assess which homeless should be referred to resources like Project PAL. "We'd like to get to know them well enough to classify their needs and know where to send them for housing and treatment."