‘My heart was constantly shattered’: Halifax single mom renovicted three times finally finds a home

It’s a problem we see or hear about every day. Tents in the park, people living in cars, being evicted or worried they won’t make rent. This week we’re looking at the scope of the problem, how we got here, who can fix it and how. 

HALIFAX, N.S. — Renovicted three times. Left three times without a home to call their own.

And through all that, single mom Sam McPhee hid the despair and desperation behind her smile for her two daughters.

“As a parent, one of the main things you’re supposed to provide for your children is a home, a roof over their heads and it’s so defeating when you’re unable to provide that,” she said.

“It feels like you’re not successful at being a parent, you’re a bad parent and you’re not.”

It started in 2019 when McPhee and her toddlers had to leave the home they were sharing with her sister in Fairview.

“It was sold to a man in Ontario and he wanted to raise our rent by over $500 and my sister and I were like, ‘ there was no way we can do this.’”

Her sister moved in with her boyfriend and McPhee and her two daughters moved in with her mom. It was a seniors place so moving in with two little girls added a whole other level of stress.

She said she was walking on eggshells trying to make sure her children were quiet while all day every day scouring online listings, hoping to catch a break. 

“We then found a place in the Dartmouth North area and it was more than I wanted to pay but I had zero options — what else were we going to do?”

Strike two

Three months after they settled in, in March 2020, the landlord said he was selling the building. It was sold to a woman in Ontario and in September she informed tenants that she was going to renovate the building and everyone needed to leave.

“At this point, I’m like, are we cursed? This is crazy.”

It was back to her mother’s place again, the kids uprooted from a neighbourhood and school they were just getting to know.

“Moving into your mother’s two-bedroom apartment with two children in a mainly seniors apartment it was difficult on the mental health,” she said. “My mom and I get along fabulously now, but we don’t live under the same roof for a reason.”

Strike three

They started going to the North Grove, a non-profit community hub, and there she met someone who offered to rent out a space in her house. 

So the start of 2021 seemed hopeful — the girls had their own rooms and they had a yard. McPhee was promised stability.

“They were so happy … and then spring rolled around and she’s like, ‘we’re going to sell the house.’”

This time around, living with her mom wasn’t an option because of tightening pandemic restrictions and McPhee said she just couldn’t mentally take it again.

She couldn’t get help from official agencies, she said, because they technically had somewhere to stay so the family wasn’t homeless in their eyes. Her caseworker at the Department of Community Services told her there was nothing he could do until they were actually homeless.

“Once I contacted Adsum Housing and Welcome Housing Halifax they were vital in us figuring it all out because (the case worker) wouldn’t answer my phone calls but he would answer the housing support worker’s phone calls.”

Thanks to their advocacy on her behalf, McPhee managed to secure funding for a hotel room but there was a catch — she had to call shelters every day to see if there was space for her.

Living in a one-bed hotel for three months was far from a vacation, she said. It was mentally taxing and she felt like a failure as a mom.

Her daughter Hazel spent her third birthday homeless in a hotel room.

“My heart was constantly shattered. I didn’t tell many people about our situation at the time. I was ashamed.”

Putting on a happy face and taking life a day at a time was the only way she could make it through, she said.

“If I allowed myself to feel how I was truly feeling I’m not sure where we would be today.”

The province had instituted a renoviction ban between November 25, 2020 and March 2022 but that didn’t mean it wasn’t happening. 

For McPhee, the first renoviction was pre-pandemic and she was given enough notice of the rent increase. The second time, she was on a month-to-month lease “so I was basically a sitting duck.” And the third, she was renting from a friend with no formal lease agreement.

Dream come true

It all changed one day with a phone call. 

At this point, McPhee had been on the wait-list for public housing for nearly four years. Thanks to a housing support worker with Welcome Housing advocating for her, she got on a priority access list. She said she was calling every day asking: “Do you have a house for me?”

She was at the North Grove (a place she said felt like a second home) one day in July 2021 when she got the call from Metro Housing — there was a three-bedroom townhouse in Uniacke Square available for her.

“I was like, ‘stop the world!’ This is the best day ever.”

“It’s great, it’s such a vibrant, multi-cultural community and my kids have been thrown in the deep end and they’re social butterflies and they absolutely love it,” she said.

Lessons to share

Going through all that, McPhee said she wants to share that people need to be more understanding.

“No one wants to be in these situations. Nobody wants to be homeless. Nobody wants to have to call every single day asking (for a place to live).”

She said it feels crazy that there are no systems in place to help people navigate an all-too common situation like hers.

“It’s just call this person, call that person. It’s just a vicious cycle of you’re calling, calling and calling and you’re ending up on wait-lists,” she said.