Community services minister voices frustration with response to homeless shelter program

The Nova Scotia government continues its work to support the homeless, including opening a temporary 70-bed emergency shelter Monday at the Halifax Forum, but Community Services Minister Trevor Boudreau admits that the work can be trying.

“This has been a bit of a frustrating week, in a sense,” Boudreau told reporters after a cabinet meeting Thursday.

“This government has done a lot to support people experiencing homelessness and has invested a significant amount of money, over a 261 per cent increase in budgets over the last while.”

Boudreau said that in the fall the government was looking for a 50-bed shelter and provided one that was able to expand to 100, referencing the shelter that opened in November at the former St. Paul Church in Dartmouth.

“Our hope was that people would move over from the Halifax (tent) encampments to that site, and that didn’t happen,” Boudreau said.

“In conversations, it was believed that we needed a shelter here on the Halifax side.”

The minister said the province worked with Halifax Regional Municipality and the Forum’s multi-purpose centre was identified as the preferred location by HRM because a provincially funded service provider could operate there in winter and spring.

The provincial government says nearly half the capacity at the $3-million Forum shelter — 30 of 70 beds — is held for people staying in tent encampments at the Grand Parade in Halifax and the Cobequid ballfield in Lower Sackville.

Shelter spurned

However, people living in those encampments have told local media that they feel safer sleeping in tents than in the new shelter that one encampment resident described as being “like a jail.”

The shelter at the Forum will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, until the end of August, and it can increase capacity based on need and extreme weather events. 

The province will pay $3 million to cover operational costs at the Forum site while HRM is providing the space and a shower trailer.

“We put the money forward to provide that support for people who are living in encampments,” Boudreau said Thursday. 

“It is a challenge, people are saying they don’t want to go and this is frustrating because we have a space that is available and we have capacity there right now.”

The minister said it is warm and a “safer space” than being outside in a tent with the risk of a fire. 

“I strongly urge those who are in encampments to really take this opportunity,” Boudreau said. 

The minister said the department has and continues to look at all options and opportunities.

“The shelter was identified as an opportunity, an opportunity that provides the supports to people, and I would strongly encourage people who are in encampments to take this opportunity.”

Boudreau said he didn’t have the numbers from Wednesday night but he understood that 32 of the 70 beds were occupied overnight Tuesday.

Un-Pallet-able

Outreach workers and navigators are working with people at the encampments to persuade them to take advantage of the new shelter, which has been described as an auditorium-like space with cots and curtains between beds.

Because of the configuration of the available land at the Forum, it has been determined as an unsuitable site for a Pallet village, named after the company that makes the tiny housing units. A village must have a minimum of 10 housing units, and there is not enough space for that many units and washroom and laundry facilities, Boudreau said

“It’s too small for the Pallet buildings,” he said of the Forum site.

A Pallet site planned for the Whitney Pier area of Sydney has residents there voicing opposition to having the village set up in their community.

“People who decided to locate the Pallet homes where they did need to realize and understand that the location is not appropriate,” Liv Howard, a Whitney Pier resident who helped organize a closed-door community meeting Tuesday evening that drew more than 200 concerned people, told SaltWire.

“There is no food bank or clothing bank in the Pier,” Howard said. 

“There’s a grocery store, but it’s actually just a market and it closes at 5 p.m. every day. The bus stop at the top of Henry Street on Victoria Road is already overwhelmed. And the majority of the time when you’re waiting for the bus, you have to wait for the next one because there’s no room on it.”

Howard also voiced concerns about who will be living in the Pallet village and the potential for unsavoury conduct within sight of her family of six. 

Concerns, questions

Boudreau said the Pallet program is a tool that the province utilizes to provide space for people. 

“As you go through the process, we recognize that whether we’re hearing it from municipalities, from the opposition or from the media, that there is a sense of urgency and we need to get these shelters up in place,” Boudreau said.

“The process is about identifying potential sites. . . . We move quickly, certainly, and work with municipalities and our service providers and have conversations with them about these sites and the potential sites.”

The minister said government recognizes that there are concerns and people have questions. 

“This is a new initiative, and as a new initiative there will be questions. Pallet has done this dozens of times across North America and they have been successful. We know that it is important to have conversation with communities about what expectations are but we want these to be successful, the community wants these to be successful. There needs to be some conversations about the concerns but I do believe that we are moving in a direction that everybody wants, to support those extremes in homelessness.”

The province has purchased 200 units from Pallet, 100 designated for HRM and 100 for other communities, including Sydney and Kentville

The Community Services Department has announced that the Old School Gathering Place in Musquodoboit Harbour is also providing temporary co-ed accommodation until the end of April for six people experiencing homelessness. 

New supportive housing units for 32 women and gender-diverse people will open Feb. 5 at the former Waverley Inn on Barrington Street in Halifax, with the YWCA providing 24-hour support.

In addition to the $3-million investment for the temporary shelter at the Forum, the province is providing $43,700 for the Musquodoboit site. 

The total number of shelter beds in HRM is up to 355, and 138 beds are available in other areas of the province.