Halifax readies new Dartmouth homeless site

As work wraps up at the new designated homeless encampment off Windmill Road in Dartmouth, nearby residents and business owners are calling for strong safety plans before people move in.

On Thursday afternoon, crews worked on the formerly wooded property at the corner of Bancroft Lane and Marketplace Drive on Wrights Cove, which has been cleared and levelled with gravel.

Municipal staff, local politicians, and police and fire officials met Wednesday with residents from the surrounding apartment and condo buildings, as well as those from the nearby businesses that include a Tim Hortons, salon and boat shop.

Max Chauvin, director of housing and homelessness for the municipality, said the site will be ready within the next few weeks and then they will start helping people in other camps or non-designated sites move to Bancroft.

He said the city still must do a fire assessment on the site and other work before deciding how many people it can handle, but it will be fewer than 100 tents.

160 people sleeping rough

Chauvin said about 160 people are now sleeping rough in the urban core, while the by-name list that tracks overall homelessness in Halifax was at 1,278 as of Wednesday.

During the meeting, residents asked for 24-hour security and plans to keep the area safe in light of violence and fires happening at other camps. Some people shared stories about having altercations with people experiencing homelessness in the area over the past few months, and finding needles on their property.

Staff from Mainline Needle Exchange said they’re always ready to respond and clean up needles anywhere, and area Coun. Tony Mancini said having more support and supervision with a designated camp should help address those problems.

“If … we don’t designate more encampments, we’re going to have tents in, you know, every bit of municipal green space that’s available,” Mancini told CBC on Thursday.

“And without management, that’s not a good situation to be in for the municipality, for the people in tents, and for the neighbourhood.”

Mancini said he would explore what security could look like at the site, and promised to sit down with Halifax Regional Police. He added that lessons have been learned from other camps, and once the number of tents is decided, “we’ve got to stick to that number.”

Insp. Chris Marinelli, HRP divisional commander, said once they know more, they will form a patrol plan and stay in touch with residents in and around the camp.

“I’m certainly going to be doing everything I can to make sure you guys feel safe — that’s our job,” Marinelli said during the meeting.

Although Chauvin said there are certainly people in camps dealing with unmet mental-health and addictions issues, the fastest-growing sector is “people who simply can’t afford a place to live.” 

He said they see people who are displaced through renovictions or rent hikes, and mentioned a pending rooming house closure. The demolition of nearby Ocean Breeze Village in Dartmouth has also begun, which will see hundreds of people looking for housing.

“Those things are coming and we need to deal with them,” Chauvin said.

There will be a new after-hours team of city staff who can respond to issues, but they will not be on-site all the time.

Halifax council has asked the province to fund a 24-7 civilian support team for encampments, which would run about $4 million. Mancini said the city has yet to receive a response.

“We’re trying to do everything possible,” he said Thursday.

“My ask to the community is reach out to people they know that are in [provincial] government, if they know elected officials, reach out to them and say look ‘step up, help with the municipality even more.'”

Besides Bancroft, the municipality has recently reopened the Geary Street green space in downtown Dartmouth and designated Cogswell Park off Windsor Street in Halifax for people to tent outside.

This allowed city staff to move people from Northbrook Park in Dartmouth to Geary Street, or to other housing. The undesignated Northbrook site was beside a playground, and residents have said it was no longer safe to walk through or send their children to play. As of Wednesday, Chauvin said Northbrook was empty.