Nunavik health board plans patient boarding home in Montreal’s West Island

Patients and escorts often sit in the front common area of the YMCA on Tupper St. in Montreal. (FILE PHOTO)

MONTREAL — Benches in front of the YMCA at 4039 Tupper St. in Montreal remain a constant draw for Nunavimmiut, who come out for a smoke, to chat with friends and soak up warm spring temperatures.

Putulik Angutigirk of Saluit, who’s staying at the YMCA for two weeks while he’s treated for a hand injury, said the downtown boarding home offers good services, but he doesn’t like the surrounding neighbourhood.

“It’s Atwater,” he said, gesturing toward that busy street, as if that location speaks for itself.

Other clients, and even some, staff, complain the neighbourhood exposes people from Nunavik to crime and substance abuse.

Nunavik health board officials say they’re aware of those concerns, while they continue to look for the “right” location to house a permanent boarding home.

The facility must be located in a neighbourhood where Nunavimmiut feel welcome and safe, said Larry Watt, the director of out-of-region services at the Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services.

“It’s been many years since we’ve been looking for a permanent location,” Watt told Nunatsiaq News in a phone interview. “Finding a building in Montreal is a lot harder than we thought — it must be specific to our needs.”

The search has been a long process, which began in 2009 when the Northern Quebec Module, which provides services to patients from Nunavik while they’re in Montreal, and Nunavik House finally decided to move out of a crime-ridden stretch of St. Jacques St. West in 2011.

A planned move to a former Chinese hospital in the Montreal borough of Villeray was cancelled in 2010 after some local residents and borough council members said a patient boarding home could bring unwanted crime and social problems to neighbourhood.

The health board finally signed a lease at the new downtown facility in April 2011.

Now the real estate broker CB Richard Ellis Ltd. is looking for an appropriate facility or location in the West Island, Watt said.

“We’ve pre-defined a general area with the brokers of where we want the new facility to be,” he said.

That could be an existing building or there could be a vacant lot with space to build a new 143-bed residence.

Officials had looked at purchasing the Holiday Inn on Côte-de-Liesse and at other hotels closer to downtown, he said, but those deals didn’t moved ahead.

“The search is still on” for a permanent home for Nunavik’s patient boarding home in Montreal, Watt said.

Officials hope to have something in place by the end of 2013.

Meanwhile, the YMCA continues to see hundreds of patients and escorts every month in the 150-bed building, which also houses the Northern Quebec Module offices.

Watt said more than 5,600 patients and escorts stayed there between April 2010 and March 2011.

“We’re talking about a lot of arrivals,” he said.

The YMCA has been able to accommodate everyone, but another boarding home called Chez Gigi remains on stand-by, he said.