New Pallet shelter villages opening around Nova Scotia

A new shelter village for people over the age of 50 who are homeless opened Monday in Dartmouth, N.S.

The site on Atlantic Street has 41 Pallet shelters — tiny homes offering a warm and secure place to sleep — along with three bathroom units that include showers, sinks and toilets.

The executive director of the Atlantic Community Shelter Society, which is operating the village, said up to six people were expected to move in by the end of the day.

“The objective is to have people move in and as soon as possible move out,” Joe Rudderham told CBC Radio’s Information Morning Halifax.

He said the site will have a case manager who will work with residents to connect them with community support and find them long-term housing.

Rudderham said the remaining 35 shelters will be filled in the next six to eight weeks. He said the site is focusing primarily on people over the age of 50 because they may feel more vulnerable in general shelter environments.

Many of the initial residents will likely be coming from other shelters.

The 70-square-foot Pallet shelters are made of fibreglass and are designed for one person. They are equipped with a bed, a desk, a small storage space, and heating and cooling systems.

“They meet the very basic needs of individuals being safe,” Rudderham said.

He said residents will also have access to kitchen and laundry facilities within the former Jehovah’s Witnesses Kingdom Hall that is on the same property.

The Dartmouth shelter village is the third to open in Nova Scotia, including a 19-unit Pallet shelter village in Lower Sackville. 

Kentville Pallet shelters

A Pallet shelter village also opened in Kentville last week. 

The Tiny Meadows Shelter Community is operated by Open Arms Resource Centre, a non-profit that helps provide people with emergency shelter, supplies and peer support.

Its new site has 20 Pallet shelters, and units with laundry and bathroom facilities. A communal building is also being built on the property, which will have kitchen facilities.

“We are more than happy with how the site has turned out,” Leanne Jennings, the executive director of Open Arms, told Information Morning.

She said residents will be offered a Pallet shelter once they have completed the organization’s 30-day emergency stay and they have demonstrated independent living skills.

The shelter village is “an incredibly dignified and supportive way” for residents to take the next step toward stable housing, said Jennings.

She said she expects to welcome five residents by the end of the week.

“I believe that the face of homelessness is changing rapidly,” she said.

“We all know that there’s an affordability crisis and the housing crisis, and we see changes all the time in the circumstances of individuals, and there’s no one demographic who is experiencing homelessness, so it’s important to collect data and to continue to evaluate the situation and adapt accordingly.”

Jennings said the Kentville site adopted the name of Tiny Meadows to dispel misconceptions about the Pallet shelters — for example, that they are made from wooden pallets. 

“We felt it was important to move away from that name [Pallet], and we also wanted to have this space feel very unique to Kentville and [have] a very welcoming sense for community,” she said.

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There is one more shelter village under construction in Nova Scotia. A Pallet shelter village in Sydney is expected to welcome residents later this month.

The shelter villages are part of a $7.5-million provincial investment into 200 shelter units. The province was looking for more locations for Pallet shelter villages as of June.