Vacationing Chilean fisherman tenting in Halifax homeless encampment

Oscar Mansilla is no stranger to poverty. 

The Chilean crab fisherman spent most of his childhood living in a shack and sleeping on a dirt floor.  

“I know what it’s like to be poor,” Mansilla said moments after slipping out of a one-person tent in the pouring rain. 

His was among about 30 others at Victoria Park in Halifax one afternoon late last week. The place has been transformed into a homeless encampment over the past few months. It sits right beside the city’s shopping district on Spring Garden Road.  

Mansilla has made the park his home for over a week, shortly after arriving from South America. The 29-year-old landed in Halifax at the end of July. He’d realized his dream adventure, having always wanted to come here to see the ocean, beaches and go fishing. 

He spent his first week in a hotel. But after racking up a $1,500 bill, he decided to look for cheaper options. 

He took a stroll up Spring Garden and discovered the encampment. It was perfect, he said.

“People told me that this is where the homeless are sleeping so I said I’ll stay here.” 

He’s enjoyed his stay and made a few friends along the way. 

“It’s very peaceful here, you know” he said.  

“They are nice people here, no bad people. They need only people who understand them.” 

He’s heard plenty of stories of struggle. One woman told him that she simply couldn’t make ends meet working minimum wage. Another one shared with him that she wound up homeless because she grew tired of spending all her money on rent. 

The homelessness crisis in the city continues to deepen, with the number of people sleeping rough in Halifax doubling in less than a year, according to Elizabeth Frye. Mansilla says people he’s spoken to say government simply doesn’t care about them. 

“They say the government abandoned their own people.” 

Mansilla is here on a visitor’s visa and plans to remain in Nova Scotia until November.  He’s from Puerto Natales, the most southern city in Latin America. Since the age of nine, he’s fished crab. He’d like to get a work permit and get on a fishing boat. In fact, he made the trek to Eastern Passage’s Fisherman’s Cove last week to try his luck but there were no job prospects. Not yet anyway. It’s the off-season, he was told by some local fishermen, who suggested he check back in the fall. 

Back home in Chile, the crab fishery has fallen on hard times. Mansilla is eager to get back on the water.  

“I miss the ocean, all that beautiful ocean in the morning,” he said. “The calm, the storm. . . . That is adventure for me.”  

Mansilla says he’s also qualified and willing to do carpentry work and construction labour.  

Potential employers can contact him at [email protected].