The bosses of several Montreal homeless shelters say they are facing a crisis as increased staff absences due to COVID-19 threaten to disrupt services during the coldest part of winter.
There were outbreaks in 27 Montreal homeless shelters between Dec. 26 and Jan. 1, with a total of 110 employees and clients testing positive during that time, according to the local health authority in the southernmost part of the city. .
Michel Monette, CEO of CARE Montreal, says the city is “on the brink of a humanitarian crisis.”
Nearly 30 percent of its employees are currently out of work due to a positive COVID-19 test, and up to 25 percent of shelter users have tested positive, it said in an interview Thursday. While she has managed to keep all the shelter’s beds open for now, she says she will have to close dozens if the situation worsens, and has already had to stop offering other services, including psychosocial care.
“The shelters are full, our users and employees are getting sick,” he said. “I have three or four employees every day who get a positive diagnosis. It doesn’t stop.”
Sam Watts, executive director of Welcome Hall Mission, says the 108-bed hotel the city requisitioned for the homeless with COVID-19 positive is already full, leaving shelters wondering what to do with people who test positive.
However, Watts said his biggest concern is a shortage of staff. While his own organization has done well so far, he said many smaller shelters have had to downsize due to the outbreaks, which he says puts more pressure on the overall system.
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He said he fears a major outbreak that will force the interruption of services in any of the three largest shelters in the city, a situation that, according to him, would be “catastrophic”.
“It would not be an exaggeration to say that the situation is on the razor’s edge in Montreal with regard to the ability to serve,” he said in an interview Thursday.
Watts said shelters are doing everything they can to keep staff safe by wearing masks, implementing rapid tests, asking people to reduce contacts and organizing COVID-19 booster vaccine clinics. He said the vaccination rate among workers in his organization is high, which may have helped prevent the worst so far.
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Nakuset, who uses only one name and is the director of the Montreal Native Women’s Refuge, says her organization has also been lucky to have had few cases of COVID-19 so far this winter. The shelter decided in late December not to accept new clients due to the Omicron variant of the new coronavirus, a measure it hopes to lift soon.
However, he says it is difficult to operate when the city has provided fewer emergency resources this year compared to the previous year, adding that this year’s challenges are greater.
“We have more cases, more homeless people than last year, fewer services,” he said in an interview Wednesday.
Nakuset said she had to raise funds to keep a warming tent open this season that was opened last year after a homeless Indian died outside on a frigid night after a nearby shelter closed. She said she learned that six staff members at that store tested positive for COVID-19.
“We just do it day by day and try to figure out how to balance everything and keep people safe and not shut down,” he said.
While the city of Montreal recently announced that it had requisitioned two hotels to allow COVID-positive people to isolate themselves, Nakuset says one is not for families with children, adding that the other only opens in February. Last year, he said the city opened more temporary shelters, including one at the Bonsecours Market in Old Montreal.
In an email, a spokeswoman for Mayor Valérie Plante’s cabinet said Thursday that the city was evaluating sites for more emergency shelters.
“We have never shied away from responding to the needs of the most vulnerable and we will leave no one behind,” the statement said, noting that the city had doubled the budget dedicated to fighting homelessness by 2022.
But both Watts and Monette noted that beds alone will not solve the problem, as shelters need staff to supervise them.
Watts said that while emergency services are needed, ultimately there must be a broader reform of how services are delivered in the city. That includes a coordinated intake system to help address people’s diverse health and housing needs, rather than a “disparate collection” of low-income groups serving the most vulnerable.
The provincial government, Watts added, needs to implement a supplemental rental program, which it said would help more people stay in apartments.
This Canadian Press report was first published on January 7, 2022.
Reference-www.nationalobserver.com