Author’s note: Since this story ran, I’ve received feedback about the accuracy of my reporting. There is a porta potty at the Geary Street site; I’ve been told it was there when I was there a week ago. I did not see it then but I have since found it. Unfortunately as is the way […]
Homelessness
Posted inNews + Opinion
City council opens some parks for unhoused Haligonians to sleep in
Halifax city council voted at its Tuesday meeting to allow people without a home to sleep in parks legally. This change was specifically presented to council because changing the bylaw for park use “is the only legislative or administrative option that we have,” said Max Chauvin, parks and recreation special projects manager in his presentation. […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
First modular move-in “was really great and very chaotic”
Despite bone-chilling wind and the temperature sitting around -16 degrees, a recent Sunday was warm and happy for the Out of the Cold housing association. The long-awaited day had finally arrived when a group of unhoused people got to move out of the Gray Arena, which was being used as a makeshift shelter since early […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
A People’s Park success story
In late August, Malcolm Kay first experienced homelessness in Halifax. He spent nearly six weeks without a permanent address. First, he was sleeping in a tent at People’s Park, then was promised—and ousted from—a room at the Comfort Inn, spent a few nights at the Gray Arena and went back to the park. Finally, as […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Advocates says province’s affordable housing approach isn’t good enough
Advocates say the province is taking the wrong approach in its quest to cut homelessness and make housing more affordable. They suggest making sweeping changes to grow the non-profit housing sector. Over the next 10 years, Nova Scotia will put close to $400 million of federal and provincial dollars into affordable housing, following the tenets […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
An investment company bought my building
Though I’m reluctant to “air my dirty laundry in public,” to quote my grandmother, I do so in hopes it may help in some way to ameliorate others’ circumstances. The facts are brief and similar across the board. Much of my backstory is in the documentary My Week on Welfare by Jackie Torrens and Jessica […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
A housing-first model will help end homelessness in Nova Scotia
In 2015, the city of Medicine Hat, Alberta took a compassionate and unprejudiced approach to ending homelessness by using a housing-first model. Homes are offered to anyone who needs them. Ten days are now the most an individual or family stays in a Medicine Hat shelter. With a roof over their head, people are able […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Halifax shelters scramble to keep people warm during winter storm
UPDATE: Despite HRM’s press release listing 1223 Lower Water Street as one of the comfort centres open all night, NS Power has apparently shut it down for the evening. The lights are on at Out of the Cold—for now, anyway. Organizer Eric Jonsson says the power has already gone out twice today, which has left […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Phoenix marks 30 years of helping youth across HRM
The idea actually started in 1984, with a meeting to discuss the problem of homeless youth, but the Phoenix organization considers its founding as happening three years later. Those early years were a gestation period, time for a small group of committed people to coalesce around a concern and put a plan into action, rallying […]
Posted inLifestyle
Homeless report issued
Fifty-three percent of Halifax’s homeless population has been diagnosed with at least one form of clinical mental illness. Seventy-two percent have dealt with serious depression or anxiety, and 48 percent have seriously considered taking their own lives.Those are the findings catalogued in a report issued Tuesday by the Community Action on Homelessness. The findings are […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Charlie A’Court busks for housing
Charlie A’Court may be a two-time East Coast Music Award winner, but he paid his dues getting there. When the Truro blues man arrived in Halifax fresh-faced at 21, he struggled to make rent. “I spent that whole summer busking and that was the money I’d live off,” he explains. “Sometimes people would bring a […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Out in the cold
A deal between the provincial government and an organization that runs some of Halifax’s homeless shelters could end up endangering the lives of homeless people this winter, front-line workers say. In October, minister of community services Judy Streatch announced that Pendleton Place would not re-open this winter due to an agreement her department made with […]