The saga of the HRM modular units first began in late September, when mayor Mike Savage announced that modulars would be acquired for 72 of the more than 400 unhoused people in Halifax.
Over the following weeks, those modular units were promised “before the snow flies,” by Halifax’s housing and homelessness administrator Erica Fleck.
The original modular units were dilapidated, and had been sitting at a construction yard just outside the city for several months. Then, in early November, the municipality said it would ditch those units, and secure different, new units.
HRM will pay $3.2 million for 24 units in Dartmouth and 38 in Halifax—10 fewer than the original number of beds promised. The Dartmouth units were first supposed to be installed and operating by the end of November. Then, in late November, the date was quietly pushed to December 20.
Those units are again delayed, which was announced at an invite-only community meeting held by downtown Halifax councillor Waye Mason Thursday evening and Fleck. Fleck told the 40 or so people in attendance that the modular units for Dartmouth were now expected to arrive at the “end of December, first week of January.”
“We just ran into a couple of issues with contractors and just the ground and different things going on,” says Fleck.
The Halifax units, the location of which was announced in early December, were originally promised to arrive in late January. But those units will now be delayed at least another month, Fleck says.
Halifax is anticipated to be ready for the end of February-ish, "but they’re really heavy on the ish right now,” Fleck said. “Because again we haven’t started, so just lining everything up and the weather is going to be our friend or our enemy.”