Milton Park's Fentanyl Crisis Exposes Broken Care System
Drug dealers disguised as homeless prey on vulnerable Montrealers while rehab wait lists balloon. Intervention workers say the system has collapsed.
Montreal's most visible homeless encampment has become a hunting ground. Intervention workers on the ground in Milton Park report that drug dealers are masquerading as unhoused people to get close to their targets, exploiting vulnerability with calculated predation.
"Dealers will sometimes act as if they're also on the street and kind of blend in," one worker explained. "They act like they're unhoused and really they're just trying to prey on vulnerable people."
The problem runs deeper than street-level criminality. Milton Park is a symptom of a broken system where rehab wait times stretch endlessly while society's most vulnerable are left exposed. The concentration of addiction, poverty, and now organized exploitation in a single neighbourhood reflects the absence of coordinated care and prevention.
The dealers aren't just selling—they're giving product away to build dependency, according to reports. In a city with housing shortages and inadequate mental health infrastructure, the street becomes a market. Fixing Milton Park means fixing the system behind it.