A new emergency shelter opened on Thursday will be able to accommodate up to 350 homeless people with COVID-19, as the community faces an unprecedented surge in positive cases since the start of the pandemic and cold spells that claimed the life of a homeless man on Monday.
Data from Montreal Public Health dating from the start of the week show at least 500 homeless people in the metropolis who have contracted COVID-19 since the beginning of January, or about 50 positive cases per day. There are also 23 active outbreaks reported in shelters in Montreal.
“We have never seen anything like this” since the start of the pandemic, confided to the Duty Thursday morning the president and CEO of the Old Brewery Mission, James Hughes. In comparison, 260 cases of COVID-19 had been identified in more than five months last year in the resources intended for homeless people in the metropolis, i.e. between 1er July and December 18. “We live in very difficult times,” sighed Mr. Hughes.
Faced with this outbreak of cases marked by the rise of the Omicron variant, Montreal Public Health asked the City last Friday for authorization to transform the Montreal Soccer Stadium into a site intended for homeless people suffering from COVID-19, in particular in order to unclog the shelters already in place.
“It’s very important because, when an infected person goes to a shelter, they risk contaminating the whole thing, and that completely destroys the environment,” said Thursday morning the mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante, during a meeting. tour of the site in the company of the minister responsible for metropolitan France, Chantal Rouleau.
This new shelter will also make it possible to release the emergency rooms of certain homeless people suffering from COVID-19, but whose symptoms are mild, underlined the President and CEO of the CIUSSS du Centre-Sud-de-l’Île. -de-Montreal, Sonia Belanger.
Respond to the request
The huge establishment in the Villeray–Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension borough, which had already been requisitioned last winter, was thus transformed in the last few days to accommodate a few hundred makeshift beds provided by the Red Cross. Next to these are electrical outlets to allow travelers to charge their cell phone battery, if needed.
“We are very happy for the users, because otherwise it becomes a challenge to load the equipment,” explained the director of emergency services at the Old Brewery Mission, Émilie Fortier, during the site visit.
The place, which will welcome homeless people from Thursday evening, includes a cafeteria and televisions in order to be able to feed and entertain the occupants during their period of isolation of a few days. An area is also reserved for women, and cubicles have been set up to provide basic care to the homeless.
The creation of this site also makes it possible to keep dormant the refuge temporarily set up in the Chrome hotel, in the city center. This establishment will therefore only welcome homeless people again if the demand justifies it. “Fingers crossed that’s going to be enough,” said Mr. Hughes.
“A statement of failure”
The opening of this shelter comes three days after the death, Monday evening, of a 74-year-old homeless man, found dead under a viaduct in the midst of a cold snap, recalling the death in January 2021 of Raphaël André in the streets of Montreal. “In our field, when that happens, it’s a complete failure,” Mr. Hughes slipped Thursday, in an interview in front of the Montreal Soccer Stadium.
When asked if this second death could have been avoided, Ms.me Plante insisted on the shared responsibility between the Government of Quebec, the health network and the City, with regard to homelessness.
“Regarding the tragic death of this man, who was in his makeshift shelter, it is really a tragic demonstration that sleeping in a tent or having a makeshift shelter does not work. So it takes solutions like more shelters, obviously, but let’s not forget that these are short-term solutions, ”added Ms.me Crashes during a scrum. She then again challenged the Government of Quebec to increase funding for the construction of social housing in the province.
The Mayor also insisted on the fact that the City has orders from the health network for the creation of additional resources. “We, if we are asked for places, there are […] But the fact remains that if the need is greater, we need to have a message to that effect,” she said. “Collaborative work is essential,” she added.
The spokesperson for the CIUSSS du Centre-Sud-de-l’Île-de-Montréal, Jean-Nicolas Aubé, reminded the Duty that it is currently difficult for the health network to adequately anticipate the needs of homeless people, due to the current context of the rapidly changing pandemic. “Until last week, our shelters were meeting demand,” but the severe cold of the past few days has changed the situation, he said. In this context, “it’s a real tour de force” that has been achieved, by opening this center in record time. He also assures that the health network “will continue to adjust” to meet demand, if it were to continue to grow in the coming weeks.
This new emergency center brings to more than 1,800 the number of places available for homeless people in the metropolis, which is more than last winter.