The first H1N1 vaccination clinic for homeless people will be set up Friday at the Hope Mission agency in Edmonton's inner city.

Alberta Health Services will give vaccinations at a booth set up at a street festival marking the opening of Hope Mission's new Immigration Hall facility at 105th Avenue and 100th Street.

Many homeless people suffer from chronic medical conditions that could put them at a high risk for developing serious symptoms of the flu, said Janelle Aker-Johnston, spokesperson for Hope Mission.

"Their immune system is already really low and that, combined with sleeping in a large room with a lot of other people, or being outside all day and being susceptible to the cold, damp weather ... those were the people that we're worried about ending up in the hospital or passing away because of this," she said.

While there are other mass immunization clinics operating elsewhere in the city, homeless people will be less likely to go to them, Aker-Johnston said.

"Many of them, they are not going to take the bus, they don't have a car."

The Hope Mission initiative will be the first of several clinics set up to target Edmonton's homeless population, said Cecilia Blasetti, executive director of Boyle McCauley Health Centre.

"Our population tends to be high risk. Their health is compromised on an ongoing basis," she said.

"And then, you know, you put something like H1N1 on top of that and they don't have very much resistance ... so we're really pleased that we're going to be able to get these vaccines out to them as quickly as possible."

The seven clinics flu clinics in the greater Edmonton area have been inundated with people seeking vaccinations this week, creating waits as long as four hours at some locations.

But both Aker-Johnston and Blasetti remind people that clinics, like the one at Hope Mission, are specifically for homeless people, not the general population.