Indigenous women, seeking a future off reserve, continue to be the poorest of the poor and the most vulnerable. Their shelter is often the Native Friendship Centre. Created in the 1950s, Quebec’s 107 centres support urban Aboriginal people through health, education, employment, justice and traditional culture programs.
The day shelter “Chez Willie” welcomes and accompanies women in distress and the homeless. In less than ten years, homelessness has become one of the evils ravaging this city of 42,000 inhabitants, with its share of prejudice and racism. Stranded in the city, these women, who have left the reserve to flee difficult living conditions or domestic violence, are in a state of survival. So, during the day, they can at least take a break.” Willie’s house. ” It’s kind of like being at home. The spirit is communal, caring. The phone’s free. Speech is confident and listening is attentive. It is also often the beginning of support from the Native Friendship Centre, but since the beginning of the pandemic, “Every day, we are on the front line! “said Edith Cloutier, Executive Director of the Val-d’Or Native Friendship Centre to the journalist Anne-Marie Yvon in Ici-Canada. Here is her testimony.
“It has led us to practically reinvent ourselves in the way we keep in touch with the community.
Everything has been reviewed to respond to the various directives of social distancing decreed by public health.
A chain of wellness
Under normal circumstances, there are five intervention sites, including the Chez Willie drop-in centre for the homeless.
The sixty or so people who use the centre on a daily basis have been separated and some have been temporarily relocated to the Val-d’Or public market, thanks to the City’s cooperation.
It was also necessary to integrate a protection measure plan into a social housing building housing 24 Aboriginal families. Education and awareness-raising were necessary to ensure compliance with the containment measures.
The virus is staying away. There are no outbreaks, but everything is being put in place with ICSUSS as long as there is an outbreak in the homeless population.
Public security and the Sûreté du Québec (and its community police) are also working with the Friendship Centre.
A food security plan and a food bank have been developed. Under the plan, lunch boxes are provided to the homeless, and the bank brings boxes of food to families, individuals and seniors.
It allows us to go and see how people are doing. They have the opportunity, on a door frame, to have access to an intervention service when the need arises.
All access to justice services have been maintained. Telephone and video conferencing applications have replaced meetings with a lawyer. The redesigned pandemic service simply continued to operate.
But all of this came at a cost.
Ottawa promised $305 million to help Aboriginal communities. For friendship centres, there is still $3.75 million to be shared. At the end of the day, each centre receives a few thousand dollars to provide essential services.
It’s not that we think the [federal] government is giving too much to the communities, on the contrary, but it’s that we’re not giving enough to urban areas,” says Cloutier.
Édith Cloutier reminds us that in Quebec, 55% of First Nations live outside the communities.
According to her, the Friendship Centres demonstrate that without them, a segment of Aboriginal society in the country would be left behind.
If we were not there, she concluded, it is certain that a pandemic crisis would be accentuated by a health and social crisis, due to the living conditions of Aboriginal people.
The portrait is in the gallery on the website.
Anne Pastor
