Lower Sackville named first tiny shelter site as eyes roll over rollout times

The first 19 of 200 emergency tiny shelter units promised by the province in October are expected by the end of the month – a timeline criticized as not urgent enough amid powerful winter weather that roared through Nova Scotia Wednesday.

The first Pallet shelter village will be located in the parking lot of Beacon House in Lower Sackville with 19 of the single occupancy units expected to be delivered by the end of January, the government announced Wednesday.

Three other locations for future Pallet shelter village were also announced, including 30 units to be opened at Henry Street in Sydney, 20 units at 136 Exhibition St. in Kentville and a still-to-be-determined number of units in the parking lot of the Halifax Forum, which will also soon serve as an emergency provincial shelter in the city.

Timelines for the opening of these other three Pallet shelter villages are more vague, with provincial estimates at sometime in February or March.

Joy Knight, executive director of employment support and income assistance with the Department of Community Services, also warned Wednesday the anticipated opening of the shelters in Lower Sackville could be delayed due to weather and other unforeseen issues with site installation.

Still, Knight says the province expects the units to provide a “winter solution” for those experiencing homelessness, although she stressed it is just one of a number of steps the province says it is taking to tackle the growing numbers of unhoused individuals in the province.

“There will still be pallet villages this winter, but I appreciate that they’re not in place as fast as people would like to see them,” Knight told reporters Wednesday.

“We fully acknowledge that, and that’s why Pallet can’t be the whole solution for winter supports.”

200 shelters purchased

The province purchased 200 of the shelters from the Washington-based company Pallet Shelters for $7.5 million, with 100 earmarked for HRM and the rest for other parts of the province.

Pallet, which calls itself a “public benefit corporation” has implemented more than 120 similar temporary emergency shelter communities across the United States. The villages in Nova Scotia will be the first to use the design to be installed here.

Pallet has a number of “dignity standards” that must be met before it will deliver its units, including that sites must provide access to meals, transportation, safety and support services, hygiene facilities and each site must have a dedicated service provider to provide case management and other services for the residents.

“We don’t want to just be warehousing people, we want people to have the services that they need to move forward,” said Amy King, founder and CEO of Pallet.

“The whole point is to get people stabilized and working with service providers consistently to get them on the path to permanent housing.”

Patience urged

But questions have been mounting about why it has taken so long for these shelter units to materialize.

In early November, Community Services Minister Trevor Boudreau told CBC he expected the shelters to be open by mid-December.

But even as the province was battered Wednesday by 100 km/h winds and heavy rainfall mixing with snow on the ground, Knight urged patience.

During a technical briefing with reporters Wednesday, she pointed to a number of steps that must be taken before the units can be installed that make the process complex.

For example, eligible sites must meet certification, zoning and permitting standards and they must comply with building and fire codes and land access permits – sometimes for multiple layers of government. Once these criteria have been met, each site must be assessed by an engineer, equipped with water and power, wastewater and stormwater and fencing must be installed.

‘A lot of moving pieces’

In addition, agreements must be struck with the service providers who will be responsible for managing the sites, providing services and determining who will live in the units.

“That’s a lot of moving pieces all at once, a lot of players and a lot of partners required to make it happen,” Knight said.

But Opposition Leader Zach Churchill says the Houston government has known since the summer the homeless population was growing rapidly and that urgent solutions were needed before the winter.

“Now here we are, in winter with sub-zero temperatures and 100 km/h winds today, and there’s still people out in the street, and we’ve had people die in the street,” he said.

“The government promised 200 shelters by mid-December, it’s now January, and they’ve got a location for 19. This is totally unacceptable.”