Only 11 people appeared at a pop-up screening clinic for COVID-19 at Cabot Square in downtown Montreal during a two-hour period on Tuesday.
Organizers were hoping more than double would have appeared.
This was the only time Montreal’s public health board set up tents for diagnostic testing of the novel coronavirus at this location since the pandemic began.
It was an opportunity for many Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to be screened.
“If you put it somewhere where it’s accessible, people will use it, so that’s why I’ve been pushing for the last 2.5 months to have it here,” Nakuset, the executive director of Montreal’s Native Women’s Shelter, told Global News.
According to the Welcome Hall Mission, 714 homeless Montrealers have been tested and 21 have contracted the disease.
READ MORE: Coronavirus: Montreal announces measures to protect city’s homeless amid pandemic
Strong physical distancing measures are enforced at Montreal’s two major shelters, the Old Brewery Mission and Welcome Hall. As well, both are limiting the number of people they’ll accept inside their shelters and the body temperatures are taken of everyone who is admitted.
“If there’s any that have a temperature in the problem zone then we will send them to be tested. If they refuse we simply cannot allow them to stay inside the building and put others at risk,” Matthew Pearce, president and CEO of the Old Brewery Mission, told Global News.
Advocates consider the pandemic a golden opportunity to re-write the rule books and help the homeless find a permanent address.
“Why don’t we take advantage of the opportunity for change and see if we can’t start directing more people into permanent housing rather than thinking that it’s going to take years to do it,” Sam Watts, the CEO of the Welcome Hall Mission, told Global News.