Elisapie Pootoogook, a 61-year-old homeless woman from Salluit, northern Quebec, was found dead last Saturday at a construction site on the site of the former Montreal Children’s Hospital in downtown , near Cabot Square.
According to workers who work with the homeless, this death shows that the services offered to homeless Aboriginal people are insufficient, especially as winter approaches.
Elisapie Pootoogook frequented Square Cabot and the nearby Resilience Shelter. It was here that speaker David Chapman last saw her last Thursday.
“I helped her out, as we closed our doors for the day at 3 p.m., and she looked even more frail and weak than usual,” said Chapman, who had known her ever since. seven or eight years.
According to him, Elisapie Pootoogook had nowhere to go when it closed, because there is a lack of places and shelters open 24 hours a day for homeless natives, “especially for those who are under the influence of alcohol. He said.
He adds that Mme Pootoogook often played cat and mouse with the officers patrolling the Atwater subway station. “When she got out of the metro, she probably decided to go and hide on the construction site, and with the cold it was, maybe she was poorly dressed, it is quite possible that she was froze to death, ”says David Chapman.
The lifeless body of the sixty-year-old was discovered Saturday morning around 8:30 a.m. by a passer-by who dialed 911, said agent Jean-Pierre Brabant, of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM).
“After verification, no criminal element was discovered. The file was therefore transferred to the coroner to understand the circumstances surrounding this death, ”he adds.
A vigil in memory of Elisapie Pootoogook is being organized next Monday at Square Cabot, said Nakuset, director of the Native Women’s Home in Montreal.
A threatened refuge
This death is reminiscent of that of Raphaël André, this itinerant Innu found frozen dead, in January 2021, in a chemical toilet at the corner of rue Milton and avenue du Parc, a stone’s throw from a closed refuge that he used to frequent.
In memory of Raphaël André, a heated tent that can accommodate the homeless during the night was set up in Square Cabot, last February, overseen by the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal. Mme Pootoogook sometimes frequented this tent.
However, this refuge is threatened with closure for lack of funding.
“We met the officials of the City of Montreal today [mardi] and they told us that they could not give us anything more, ”laments Nakuset.
She is therefore looking for other sources of funding to avoid ending the activities of the shelter, which welcomed 474 people overnight from Monday to Tuesday.
But above all, she is looking for a permanent place to offer these night services in the area.
“This tent is just a band-aid, she says. We don’t need a tent, we need a permanent building. ”
“We are told that there is no room available in the area, but in the meantime, there are people who are not doing it,” adds David Chapman.