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Acclaimed Inuit artist Annie Pootoogook doesn’t live very far from the SAW Gallery on Nicholas Street, where some of her work is on display to the public.

Pootoogook has returned to a women’s shelter, where she sleeps, eats and socializes with numerous other homeless people.

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The diminutive Pootoogook, 46, doesn’t seem to have changed much since we last spoke in 2014 — that time alongside a Queensway off-ramp at St. Laurent Boulevard, where she panhandled with her then boyfriend. But she certainly seemed cheerful and content Wednesday as she spoke about the friends she hangs with at the shelter. “I’ve been living here with nice people.” she says. “… they protect me, they look after me.

“They give me cigarettes and booze … They give me a hug.”

Pootoogook says she moved out of her ex-boyfriend’s apartment in Billings Bridge recently because of constant spats. For the time being, she likes life at the shelter a lot better. She wasn’t physically abused by the man, she says, but allows that “I have to survive.” She says her friends told her he was around the other day, looking to see if they could get back together.