Residents and volunteers at the shelter encampment at Grand Parade said they had no idea about the city’s plans to de-designate encampments in HRM and evict residents, with one resident saying he will fight to stay.
On Wednesday morning, HRM sent out a press release announcing it’s closing and de-designating five of the 11 designated encampment locations. Those locations include Grand Parade, Victoria Park, Geary Street green space, Saunders Park, and the encampment in Lower Sackville.
Residents of the encampments are being told to move to indoor shelters, including a shelter at the Halifax Forum opened three weeks ago. The provincial government, HRM, and 902 Man Up worked together on that shelter, with the province spending $3 million to get the shelter started.
But some residents at Grand Parade said they won’t be moving. One resident, who didn’t want to be named, said he’s lived at Grand Parade for the last six months, and said he’d “rather be dead” than in a shelter. He said some people will spit on the shelters, saying other people treat residents like “monkeys in a zoo.”
“They better bring a lot of cops if they want to get me out of here,” the man said. “I’ll fight tooth and nail to stay.”
The resident said he’s disabled and only receives $350 in income assistance. He said he used to work and when he became disabled he received $1,000 a month in disability, and that wasn’t enough to get by.
“Do you know how many people I know who are only two paycheques away from being out here? You’re either super rich or you’re just getting by,” he said.
“I was getting by and now I’m not, and this is where you end up.”
‘We are going to continue to speak for the unhoused’
Matt Grant, who has been volunteering at the encampment at Grand Parade with Steve Wilsack, said the residents at Grand Parade have “multiple stories” as to why they don’t want to move to a shelter, including the one at the Halifax Forum.
“They are safe and warm with their own belongings and their own space,” Grant said in an interview with the Examiner.
“So, why would you ask them to remove themselves from their safe environment to go up to an auditorium with 50 people they don’t know and all their baggage?”
Grant and Wilsack have been volunteering at the Grand Parade encampment since mid-November 2023, when they came by to hand out mattress pads for the residents. They soon purchased red ice fishing shelters to replace the summer tents residents were using. There are now 31 shelters at the site. On Wednesday, the shelters were surrounded by snowbanks from the weekend’s historic snowfall.
Grant said none of the 15 residents chose to leave the encampment to go to the Forum during the weekend storm. Crews with search and rescue in Nova Scotia did visit the encampment to check on residents. Grant said the shelters were quite warm and safe. The city cleared snow from some of the pathways in Grand Parade, but Grant said he and residents have done snow removal as well.
Grant said he, Wilsack, and the residents don’t know the motivation for the eviction announcement, although Grant said the upcoming Juno awards in the Halifax in late March may have been a factor (Mayor Mike Savage rejected that notion at a press conference this afternoon). Grant said some of the residents at the encampment struggle with addictions and mental illness, and many others simply can’t afford the high rents in the city.
“People would have a better understanding of what’s going on here if they took the time to come down and speak with people,” Grant said.
He said he and Wilsack will continue to advocate for housing first.
“They have been looking at this for 80 days and if you look out that window you have seen what we have seen. So maybe they’re just tired of seeing chaos at Grand Parade Square,” Grant said.
“We are going to continue to speak for the unhoused and make sure they get into a place.”
‘It creates trauma for the whole city’
Claudy Levy stopped by Grand Parade to hand out cash donations when the Examiner was interviewing residents and Grant.
Levy heard the news about the upcoming evictions, and is worried about the city experiencing another event like it did on Aug. 18, 2021. That’s when Halifax Regional Police helped HRM staff evicted people from public land at Peace and Friendship Park, the Halifax Common, Horseshoe Island Park, and the site of the former Halifax Memorial Library on Spring Garden Road. Police also pepper sprayed and arrested a number of protestors.
Levy said the encampments are a social issue, not a police issue.
“Is that the right thing to do, to have the police come, or whoever is going to come, and do the eviction? That just creates more chaos, it creates more fear, it creates trauma for the whole city,” Levy said.
“I know that people say that this is the people’s park, this is a place can gather. Well, these are people. These are our citizens. This is a very prominent place to be because the reality is we need to see their faces. We need to see people and come down and help out.”
‘This crisis has been coming for a long time’
Levy, who is a retired civil servant, said she comes to Grand Parade to donate to the residents. She also said she and a friend help a man who is living rough in Spryfield. She said there are better ways for the government to handle the housing crisis.
“I feel that we’ve all known this crisis has been coming for a long time, and we are not creating sustainable solutions for people who are marginalized. I think some of the solutions that [the government] are proposing are not probably a majority of what the needs are for people who are living rough.”
She said anyone could find themselves living rough or in an encampment.
As a society, we live in Canada, we need to support our most vulnerable, and we need to come up with policies and strategies that are going to work for individuals. And they need input. I know it’s not always easy. People don’t want to go into an environment where there are a lot of checks and balances, so we need to adapt what these individuals’ needs are, a more people-centred approach.
As a citizen, I think we need to hold all levels of government accountable for the lack of housing strategies. I recognize there will always be a group of people who will live rough, but the amount of people living rough, that’s unacceptable. We’re seeing a crisis.
Such a sad situation. We need to help and care for our fellow man or we are all doomed. This eviction will not end well. We need to care for these people not just toss them around. It is shameful that this is happening at all in a rich country like Canada.
There was a story on Global this evening about a 77-year old woman looking for part-time work. She had to move because her term lease was not renewed and now is paying an additional $250 per month for rent … half of her monthly fixed income is going for rent. There is so much negativity about these encampments on Facebook that is based on stereotypes of how poor and undereducated people live. I was raised in poverty in Nova Scotia in the 1950s to the early 70s but it is a much different ballgame now. Our compassion for others is drying up.
thank you for this compassionate look at this issue