‘COVID-19 unbalanced everything’ for unhoused people, inquest told – Montreal Gazette

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Coroner Stphanie Gamache is investigating the death of Raphal Andr, 51, whose body was discovered inside a portable outdoor toilet steps away from a shelter in January 2021.

Published May 14, 2024 Last updated 10hours ago 4 minute read

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For unhoused people living in the street, there is a sort of order provided by the resources in place that helps to orchestrate the day-to-day lives of most.

When you live or survive in the street, things still work in a way, emergency shelter co-ordinator Jonathan Lebire said Tuesday at the coroners inquest into the death of Raphal Andr. You know where you can go to sleep, to get the things you need.

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COVID-19 destroyed all of those things.

On Jan. 17, 2021, at the height of the COVID-19 crisis and just eight days after Quebec instituted a curfew to stop mounting infections, Andr, a 51-year-old Innu man, was found dead inside a portable outdoor toilet steps away from a homeless shelter. Three years later, the inquest of coroner Stphanie Gamache started this week to look at the causes that could have contributed to his death, and for possible solutions.

Lebire knew Andr well because he was a regular at the Projet Autochtones du Qubec (PAQ) emergency shelter serving Indigenous men and women in downtown Montreal. The news of Andrs death came as a shock.

Raphal was full of life, he was always smiling, Lebire said. He wasnt someone who was depressive, he wasnt aggressive or violent. He was resilient.

I found he had a good place in his community, he had the respect of people.

The arrival of COVID-19, which saw the closing of shelters and soup kitchens, threw things into chaos, Lebire said.

People were completely broken. They didnt have any money to survive. Often they didnt know where to go to eat or sleep.

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When the Canadian government started distributing COVID-19 payments, organized crime groups got homeless people on the payment rolls, Lebire said, for a cut of the proceeds. The influx of money resulted in increased drug use. When the dpanneurs had to close early because of the curfew, crack dealers started hanging around the shelters, knowing the chronic alcoholics would need something else.

COVID-19 unbalanced everything, Lebire said. People who didnt consume drugs in the past started using.

On the day before Andr was found dead, Lebire told him that new COVID-19 regulations in Quebec stipulated anyone wanting to stay in an emergency shelter must take a COVID test first. Andr told Lebire that would be a problem for him and many others in the Indigenous community. Lebire said he knew that, but his hands were tied. He had to enforce the rules if he wanted to keep his job. They shook hands before Andr departed.

Andr went to the Open Door shelter afterward, but COVID-19 restrictions meant it was no longer accommodating overnight stays. Workers there offered to call him a taxi to stay at the PAQ shelter, but he refused. Andrs body was found the next morning in a portable toilet steps away from the closed Open Door shelter.

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Miraculously, after Raphal passed away, all of a sudden we were allowed to open at night again, said John Tessier, a former employee at Open Door. Which was very frustrating, especially as the person who had to ask him to leave.

Earlier in the day, Dr. Julie St-Cyr Bourque, the nurse and emergency room doctor who treated Andr at the Centre hospitalier de lUniversit de Montral (CHUM) the day before he died, testified that he was inebriated, but not in a severely depressed state of consciousness. He had been admitted because he fell in a dpanneur, cutting open his head.

The coroner asked if St-Cyr Bourque was aware Andr had been to the same ER more than half a dozen times in the month prior to their meeting. She said she was not, but said it would not affect her treatment of him. She treated his minor head wounds, asked if he had access to a shelter and discharged him around 6 p.m.

Blood samples showed Andr had imbibed the equivalent of 14 drinks and his levels were four times the legal driving limit on the night he died, a chemist and toxicologist with the laboratory of medical and legal sciences testified. It was enough alcohol to put the usual person into a deep stupor or sleep from which it would be hard to revive, she said. There was also valium in his system, which had been prescribed by St-Cyr Bourque earlier that day to treat his anxiety and distress. The two together would have the effect of decreasing the central nervous system.

Pathologist Dr. Yann Daz testified that an autopsy determined the likely cause of death was hypothermia, in a heavily intoxicated man. It was not thought the amounts of alcohol and valium were enough to cause his death alone.

He noted that Andrs blood samples showed he did not have COVID-19.

rbruemmer@postmedia.com

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'COVID-19 unbalanced everything' for unhoused people, inquest told - Montreal Gazette