Correction: An earlier version of this story got a few things wrong about the presentation Max Chauvin, HRM director of housing and homelessness, made at the meeting. We incorrectly paraphrased him at two points in the story, the first saying Chauvin criticized federal and provincial government actions around housing at the meeting, the second saying he told the committee that the only use for encampments is to limit the number of unhoused people dying. But Chauvin did not say those things. Additionally, we stated that Chauvin told a committee member that none of the nine potential sites on the city’s list have been officially designated as encampments, when in fact two have: Geary Street Green Space and Cogswell Park were designated by council on July 29, 2024. We sincerely apologize to Max Chauvin and our readers for these errors. The story has been revised to clear up the mistakes. (November 18)
The Point Pleasant Park Advisory Committee met on Thursday, November 14. The committee is made up mostly of local residents and District 7’s councillor, who is now Laura White. The group heard a lot of information during this meeting—some of it new—but none of the information required decision-making.
Up first, HRM’s Point Pleasant Park staff gave an update on how things are going as the city transitions from summer to winter operations. The changing of the seasons has park staff in a Sisyphean battle with leaves. The trails/roads in the park are wide gravel affairs, and as leaves fall, if they are not cleared, they cause the troads to degrade rapidly. So the park staff, now reduced due to the parture of seasonal and student hires, are spending their days blowing leaves into the woods.
The park also got some new vehicles, and rookie councillor White, fresh off a HalifACT briefing, asked if the new vehicles were electric in accordance with the HalifACT environmental plan. Staff said no, as one was a skid-steer loader and the other a Ford F-450, neither of which come in electric models. It does seem a bit weird that park staff would buy an 8,000-pound behemoth that has a bed with a working height of almost one metre, especially when considering that children are often present, short people might work for the parks department and the roads are apparently at risk of being destroyed by leaves. Is there a better, cheaper, lighter, more appropriately sized vehicle for park maintenance?
Nah, probably not.
Then the committee got an update on homelessness from Max Chauvin, the city’s director of housing and homelessness. He explained (as he has every time he’s come in front of council) homelessness is a “symptom of other problems we’re facing in the community,” and cited things like lack of available housing, affordable or otherwise. He told the committee that Finland has solved their homelessness crisis by building and continuing to build deeply affordable housing. He also told the committee that between the shelter at the Forum on Windsor Street, and the pallet shelters or shelter villages that have gone up, it’s “really important for us to make sure we understand that sometimes people will say there’s nothing being done. And in the past couple of years the province has opened between all of these, and other resources, more than a thousand beds for people who are experiencing homelessness.”
He did not mention that the province is not building and continuing to build deeply affordable housing. Nor did he mention other provincial legislation, like the fixed-term lease loophole, which is helping to ensure those thousand new beds are always in demand.
When a committee member asked why Point Pleasant was a designated encampment site, Chauvin explained, again, that the list of nine parks was a list of parks to be assessed for suitability as encampments, but only two, Geary Street Green Space and Cogswell Park, have been officially designated at this point. He explained, again, that staff made that recommendation because of a Supreme Court decision that says if the city has no designated encampments, then the city loses all control over where encampments will be. Chauvin stressed, as he’s done before at council, that encampments are bad for everyone and bad as a solution. However, he said even though encampments are the last resort option, they will continue to be needed until the flow of people being unhoused slows down. This year, the number of people experiencing homelessness in the HRM grew by about 40 people a month. When he talks about what managed encampments allow the city to do for those people—provide water, port-a-potties, power and other social services—it seems pretty clear that the reason encampments are on the table at all is that they’re the best worst option for the city to limit the number of deaths to its citizens during an era of catastrophic political failure.
After his presentation, committee chair Michelle Winters pressed Chauvin on the city’s housing first policy. She said that usually people had to be sober to access housing, which would be housing second, after sobriety, so did the city have somewhere for people to stay if they weren’t sober? Chauvin said there are only limited spaces in the city that can accommodate non-sobriety, so the city could sometimes live up to its housing first policy. But he also explained that when it comes to housing, the city plays an administrative role. For example the Forum shelter is run by the province; the city just provides the room and doesn’t get to make the rules about who gets to access the housing. In effect this is like the city inviting people to a vegan dinner party, even though they know the provincially provided caterer for the event is Big Johnny’s Carnivorous Delights Bar-B-Que Meatstravaganza.
And finally, the committee got an update from the fire department about the park. Ever since 2000, due to a series of events from beetle infestations to hurricanes, there’s been an elevated level of dead wood AKA fire fuel in the park. The good news is that the committee also heard that all the fire fighting gear in the park is working, and when the fire department is called out to the park, which happens about 11 times a year, they get there in two-to-five minutes. Well, it’s supposed to be two-to-five minutes, but the fire department is having trouble meeting its response times. In an irony of ironies, the fire department plays a key role in the degradation of its own response times.
This article appears in Nov 7-30, 2024.