The homelessness problem in Montreal can seem pretty bleak, but the Old Brewery Mission is doing some good in dealing with the issue.
A mobile health clinic that reaches out to unhoused people in encampments and metro stations is celebrating its first anniversary. The mission says the resource has helped people almost 3,000 times in the past year.
“We actually call it our little miracle,” said Mila Alexova, service co-ordinator at the Old Brewery Mission.
The mobile clinic is a Sprinter van equipped with a full medical examination room and a space to sit down and chat.
For a year now it has been reaching out to people experiencing homelessness. Not everyone will come to a traditional shelter, so five days per week between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. the clinic visits encampments, metro stations and other places where people need help.
“I think it’s one of the greatest ideas they’ve come up with,” said a man named Yianni, a client of the Old Brewery Mission who did not want to give his last name.
The clinic helps out 180 people per month, in partnership with local on-the-ground organizations. The goal is to get people off the streets and into housing.
“It’s to get to know the people that are living in the camps and living in the parks and living under the bridges and in ways we’ve never been able to before,” said James Hughes, the president and CEO of the Old Brewery Mission.
The mission describes a success story in which it was able to guide a man out of an encampment and into an apartment, without him ever visiting the shelter.
“We have a psychosocial interventionist that’s on board that’s fully equipped to do any kind of administrative work, such as tax income demands, medicare cards and applications for low-income housing,” Alexova explained.
One day per week there’s a nurse on board. Drug addiction is a major issue, and the clinic is equipped with naloxone to deal with overdoses. Yianni says it’s welcome help, because lately he’s been seeing a lot of people in health crises due to drugs spiked with fentanyl.
“They go around, they help people, and then they clean them up,” he said.
Hughes says the clinic costs about $300,000 to run annually, made possible by private funding from Telus. With the experience the team has now gained they think they can add to the 2,691 interventions done in the first year.
With more funding, they could even add another van.
“In a perfect world, within the coming years we would have more,” Alexova said.
Quebec salutes the clinic’s success.
“It’s fantastic,” Social Services Minister Lionel Carmant said. “This is part of the culture change we want to bring, to have services within the community.”
The Old Brewery Mission hopes more private and public donors come forward to help fund the initiative.