Helping people in a situation of vulnerability

COVID-19
April 21, 2020 •  By Centraide
Personne en fauteuil de dos, devant une fenêtre

Our current health crisis is deepening inequalities. It has taken a severe toll on people experiencing poverty and social exclusion while instantly putting a whole group of workers already struggling to stay afloat in an even more vulnerable situation.

Thousands of people are now isolated and in distress and have no social network to help them.

Some live in substandard housing that is not conducive to having children home all day. For others, the side effects of the pandemic include violence, exacerbated mental health problems, or increased vulnerability because of a disability or because they have just arrived in the country.

With the support of our Emergency Fund, community agencies in Greater Montreal have quickly reorganized to maintain or even intensify contact with their clients as well as with everyone made newly vulnerable by the crisis.

They are doing everything they can so that no one is forgotten.

With the closure of many services due to social distancing measures, community agencies have had to deploy new strategies to maintain and even increase contact with their clients.

Thanks to Centraide’s collaboration with SynergiTIC, many agencies are getting help to take their services digital. They can now access a crisis support kit that helps [AMB2] them set up a series of IT measures in relation to mobility, communication, collaboration, and document management so that they can continue their activities.

Five counsellors from Je Passe Partout and two librarians from the City of Montreal have been dispatched to the front lines to answer 211 calls. This service is now getting four times the number of requests, over 50% of which relate to food aid.

An essential public service, and no more so than right now, 211 is also a valuable source of information about the needs of the population.

Do you want to know which needs are greatest? These statistics are now available to the public from the 211 website.