Last week, the Affordable Housing Association of Nova Scotia published its annual report card on homeless, timed to come out during the now annual Housing and Homelessness Conference. The report notes that in HRM in 2012, there were 1,880 people who stayed in a shelter, and staying a total of 66,154 shelter nights. About 10 percent of the total, about 1,88 people, are classified as “chronically homeless,” meaning they have been relying on shelters for many years, often for decades.
A newly announced homeless initiative coordinated by the United Way and including AHANS, all three levels of government, some private firms like Killam properties and a collection of non-profit and government agencies aims to “solve” the chronic homelessness problem in Halifax within five years.
In the report, AHANS notes that homelessness is merely the bottom of a housing continuum, that ranges from shelter and rooming houses on the low end, through social housing and apartments, all the way up to high end condos. “As rental housing becomes more expensive, the entire continuum becomes more expensive,” explains AHANS’ Grant Wanzel. “We see it with increased homelessness, but people are suffering at all levels, paying more than they should be for their housing.”
Wanzell in particular points at the new shipbuilding contract, which has pushed up rents throughout the north end. This has in turn seen apartment building repurposed as condos, and at the entry level rental market, rooming houses sold and renovated as apartments. In 2007, there were 153 rooming houses in HRM; last year there were just 25, and five of those are for sale. At the conference, the manager of Turning Point shelter noted that every time a rooming house closes, the shelter sees an increase in business.
This article appears in Nov 28 – Dec 4, 2013.
It seems pretty simple to me we have so much homelessness and at the same CBC is running articles how all these expensive new apartment buildings being built are desperate for tenants, giving away ipads free months of rent and anything they can (besides lowering rent). I just moved from one on larry uteck to a house in sackville the rent for my 2 bedroom when i left was 1450 a month and they expect rent to go up by at least for 3 more years. Build affordable housing and it will rent.
It’s funny how many people tell me how expensive it must be for me to live in Victoria instead of Halifax. Once you calculate in availability of work and wages it’s cheaper to live in almost any other city in Canada OTHER then Halifax.
Halifax is actually more expensive to live in then Toronto folks.