‘Unnecessary death’: Advocates want long-term solutions after Inuk elder found dead at construction site

Advocates are calling for more resources and safe spaces for Montreal’s homeless community after an Inuk elder was found dead at a construction site in downtown Montreal over the weekend.

The body of Inuk elder Elisapee Pootoogook, 61, was discovered at a construction site near Cabot Square, where several homeless people pass the time.

Advocates say Pootoogook was simply looking for a warm place to stay.

“If there was an adequate heated space where she could be safe, then quite possibly she’d still be alive,” said David Chapman, the executive director of Resilience Montreal.

“It’s a community that is conditioned to see quite a lot of people die unfortunately. One of the problems we have in the area is a shortage of space for people under the influence that’s warm.

“She would’ve been seeking warmth. This is what you call an unnecessary death.”

While the official cause of death is undetermined, it’s suspected to be due to hypothermia.

Pootoogook left the nearby public transit station and headed into zero-degree Celsius weather.

“I asked her to come home with me, she wanted to stay here,” said Calvin, Pootoogook’s son-in-law. “So I don’t force nobody do something they don’t want to do. I wish she had. I wish inside of my heart, maybe I had forced a little more. Maybe it would’ve been a different circumstance.”

I extend an invitation to all, to join us in remembering Elisapee. Please share! Bring flowers. We will place them at the site of her passing after the memorial.???? pic.twitter.com/PJSWQGg94x

— Na’kuset S (@NakusetS) November 16, 2021

Pootoogook was from northern Quebec and had been living on the streets of Montreal – on and off – for the last decades. Her family says she liked to make people laugh, and she enjoyed singing lullabies to her grandchildren.

“It’s cold now, so what happens tonight if someone doesn’t have a warm space to be in?” said Nakuset of the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal. “It seems as if there are less services for the homeless than last year.

“It kills me that we’re having this conversation again that another Indigenous person has passed, and we haven’t seemed to have moved much.”

A vigil is being held in Pootoogook’s honour Nov. 22 in Cabot Square.

In February, the Indigenous community launched an overnight emergency shelter in memory of Raphael Napa André, an Innu man who froze to death in a portable toilet last January.

The tent has remained open since then, and the city was initially going to close it on Dec. 1.

“As long as we can find the additional monies, we can have the tent until March 31 now,” said Nakuset. “So we have a potential extension. But it falls on our shoulders to find the money, which is why I need to continue to fundraise.”

Many are hoping for more long-term solutions.

“We need localized options,” said Chapman. “Not just one big centre in the middle of the city where people can be where they’re warm. Because we’ve learned in the past: yes some people can travel, but quite a few people don’t travel.”

In a statement to CityNews, the City of Montreal said: “In recent years, the Montreal administration has worked tirelessly to leave no one behind during the pandemic, in particular by supporting projects intended for Indigenous people experiencing homelessness, and it will continue to work alongside the health system, community organizations and the Government of Quebec to adequately meet the needs of vulnerable people in Montreal. Montreal has the well-being of the most vulnerable at heart.

“Since November 1, the health system has announced the addition of 300 additional places in homeless accommodation resources, for a total of approximately 1,550 places dedicated to people in a situation of homelessness, including places specifically dedicated to the Indigenous community.”