“Today, the municipality is closing and de-designating five of the 11 designated [homeless tent encampment] locations because better options now exist,” read yesterday’s statement from Halifax Regional Municipality. “The Province of Nova Scotia and service providers have identified indoor sheltering and supportive housing options; and we will all be working together to support residents in encampments to move indoors.”
We’ve heard this before.
In August 2021, the municipality left eviction notices on tents in parks across the peninsula. A press release issued on Aug. 18, 2021 read in part:
[T]he municipality has worked with the Province of Nova Scotia as well as community-based partners including the Street Outreach Navigators and housing support workers, to offer those experiencing homelessness with support – including a range of housing options and/or temporary accommodation. The province continues to work to secure temporary accommodation options that can bridge to permanent housing. Temporary accommodation options – including hotel stays and shelter beds – are being made available to occupants of encampments located on municipal property.
That was not true.
Zane Woodford and I visited homeless encampments that morning and spoke with people living in tents. Most said they had been offered no temporary accommodation, no place to go. No matter, as we spoke cops arrived to force the tent dwellers to move out. “When they asked police where they should go, they were told to leave the peninsula,” reported Woodford.
At a press conference yesterday, Mayor Mike Savage agreed that the 2021 promise of alternative accommodations was false.
“At that point in time, there were very few shelter options in the city of Halifax for people who needed help,” explained Savage. “We were told [by the province] there were places [for people] to go. A lot of that was going to be hotel rooms and things like that. We feel as a city that we had the assurances we needed. That didn’t happen.”
“And that’s why when tents started appearing on [municipal] land, we said, okay, we didn’t move them,” continued Savage. “They came in the Grand Parade. We didn’t move them. Winter came, we provided power to people. We didn’t go out in January when we opened the Forum and say ‘everybody get out,’ because we knew that there would be some people that need a better alternative.”
But, now the situation has changed, said Savage.
“We’re assured, and working with the provincial government that there’s a whole suite of things, and some of them are very public — the Pallet shelters, the mini homes, the modulars, the two hotels. We’re assured that people will have a place to go that will suit their needs, and they’ll have a conversation with each person to make sure that that’s the case. But that’s what we waited for before we took this action today.”
Savage mentioned a few specific options for homeless people. The Waverley Inn will open next week and can house 37 people, he said; Pallet villages can accommodate 100 people, tiny homes will house 62, the city’s modular units another 25. And a rapid housing initiative from the federal government has created 180 units.
There was some back-and-forth at the press conference about the number of people living in the encampments. Max Chauvin, the municipality’s director of Housing & Homelessness, insisted that there were fewer than 100 people living in the five homeless encampments being de-designated, which is in contrast to the over 1,000 people on the so-called “By Name” list, which is people who have told officials that they need a place to live. Many of the people on the By Name list are not sleeping on the streets but are couch-surfing or living in otherwise untenable situations.
It’s an open question whether those being evicted will simply move to some other location outdoors.
A kinder, gentler eviction
By municipal order, five homeless encampments must be cleared by Feb. 26: those at Grand Parade, Saunders Park off Chebucto Road, Victoria Park, Geary Street in Dartmouth, and Correctional Centre Park in Lower Sackville. Four ‘designated’ homeless encampments — those along the Barrington Street greenway under the Macdonald Bridge, Lower Flinn Park on Quinpool Road, the berms on University Avenue, and Green Road in Dartmouth — will remain open.
The Aug. 18, 2021 eviction of homeless encampments resulted in police violence against homeless people and those defending the homeless.
But officials insisted the eviction of homeless people this time around will not be heavy handed.
“The next three weeks we’ll be working with people one-on-one,” said Halifax CAO Cathie O’Toole. “And doing that negotiation piece. Each week we will be delivering reminder notices, will be delivering notices about the supports that are available. And then after that, we would be starting to ramp up the conversation and dialogue and taking action to remove tents and stuff like that.”
Reporter Lyndsay Armstrong asked what happens when someone in an encampment says they absolutely refuse to leave and would rather sleep outside than go to one of the options being offered.
“Maybe that’s the end of that conversation,” replied Chauvin. “And we come back a day or so later with other options. Maybe someone needs to be taken on a tour. Maybe they don’t know what it looks like.”
Echoing comments from other reporters, including Suzanne Rent’s interview yesterday, Armstrong said she’d spoken with one encampment resident in particular. “He knows exactly what they’re like. He’s lived in the hotel rooms, he’s lived in supportive housing. He took a tour of the shelter. He stayed one night and got kicked out. He is telling me that he is very familiar with the options, and that staying in an ice fishing tent on Grand Parade is the safest, warmest place for him.”
“There are options that are not yet even on the table,” replied Chauvin. “There are things that no one’s been in yet. So again, it begins with a conversation about what somebody’s needs are and what works and what doesn’t work. And there are things that no one’s looked at yet. No one’s seen them. No one’s been inside, for example, a Pallet village.”
The officials repeatedly insisted that between the Pallet villages, the Waverley Inn, the modular housing, and newly freed space at The Bridge (the former Double Tree hotel), there will be enough space for the 100 people living in the five de-designated encampments by the Feb. 26 eviction date.
“We dropped a notice on folks this morning, to sort of say we need to move forward in a different way, but that will take time for some folks to process,” said Chauvin. “And so we’ll come back and have another conversation with somebody, and work through what they need. That’s the goal.”
O’Toole said she hoped that all the residents of the five encampments agree to alternative accommodations by Feb. 26. “But if we do get to the point where we have someone who is refusing to move there beyond the notice, we do have the legal authority to, remove people,” she said, continuing:
However, our approach is going to be not one of laying hands on people, and we’re not going to have police involved. So police may be present just to observe, to make sure there is no physical altercation that impacts either the safety of the residents of the homeless encampment or the safety of the staff, or contracted service providers or passers by who might be their observers. But it is going to be, basically a multi-skilled team of compliance enforcement officers. Probably some representatives from service providers, our street navigators, who would be working with individuals and will be packing up tents and belongings, relocating them not people, and telling the individual that it will be in storage. This is how you can get your belongings back, and then we’ll be working with them to figure out where is the space for you to go.
That reassurance echoed what the municipality said before the violent August 2021 evictions:
This morning, Municipal Compliance officers are following up with tent occupants to aid the safe removal of tents from municipal parks. Staff members from Parks and Recreation and Halifax Regional Police are onsite to assist with removal efforts if required.
If the options being provided are truly more attractive to the people living on the streets, why evict them? I asked. Wouldn’t they just move out on their own?
“Well, we have to give the notice so that people will begin to actively consider and engage with us,” replied O’Toole. “I’ll use the Forum as a wonderful example. The shelter’s been open for a couple of weeks, and not a lot of people have actually gone to try it or gone to look at it. And we’ve even run transit busses to try to take people to the Forum for them to look at it and talk to people and see what it’s like. As long as we’re providing a very attractive — well, not really attractive — but an alternative option and not forcing the conversation, then we’re not getting the individual connections with people that we need to have. We need to be able to sit down and have a reason to have the conversation with them to get them to open up about, you know, what really are your needs so that the service providers can then figure out how we develop the solution for that person.”
“It’s the beginning of the conversation,” added Chauvin. “I don’t think there’s anybody that has experience in this field that would say that sheltering outside in a tent is a good option. It’s not a housing solution at all. It’s the option that some people were faced with. And now there are new possibilities. But it begins with a conversation about ‘How are you? Where are you? What do you need? What do you want?’ There is always going to be nervousness about a new option, and that’s why it takes time to sit down and talk one-on-one with people and ask them what their interests are.”
There is no kinder and gentler way to do this. Obviously, no one asked anyone living in the encampments what they thought about the ‘better options’ that are now available – all have spoken loudly by not going even during the worst blizzard in 20 years. My hope is that the city decides to not go ahead with this nonsense and really address the issue properly – build proper (hopefully temporary) housing like other cities have done while real affordable housing is developed. Make it a true dwelling place if it’s not that temporary. Build fully functional micro homes.
I am worrying how this will unfold. It is so important, imo, to converse with all those who are tenting as guests, neighbours, friends….there is also a concern re “their belongings”; it seems people need to be able to have their belongings wherever they move. I so wish there had been some openness to the 12 neighbours model, a Canadian endeavour, for some homes for folks in need of a home.
Imagine, it’s mid-winter and Hfx. official talks about doing a “negotiation piece” with people living rough. That should address the living rough problem (sarcasm). Not one single official named reflects any insight into what really works. Look to Marcel Lebrun’s efforts in Fredericton (12 Neighbors Projects).LeBrun gets it and is doing great things to address living rough.
Here’s a quote attributed to LeBrun-
How you treat people is key to them being able to re-write their identity narrative. That’s why we chose to do this community because we are optimizing for that DIGNIFIED EXPERIENCE (my stress) where they (the residents) can say- ‘This is my own place, and I can come and go as I please.’ Again from LeBrun, and this applies to Nova Scotia and the tent sites in Halifax- ‘Despite good intentions, nothing really changes for the disadvantaged.’ Right- so stop talking about this “negotiation piece” b.s. and duplicate what 12 Neighbors has done and continues to do. It’s mid-winter for God’s sake.
100%. Just imagine, whatever we are paying to a US company, Pallet, we probably could have build a few hundred simple micro-houses like 12 Neighbours did. And had it done already with people moved in.
Saunders Park seems to be listed both as closing and staying open here: “By municipal order, five homeless encampments must be cleared by Feb. 26: those at Grand Parade, Saunders Park, Victoria Park, Geary Street in Dartmouth, and Correctional Centre Park in Lower Sackville. Four ‘designated’ homeless encampments — those along the Barrington Street greenway under the Macdonald Bridge, Lower Flinn Park on Quinpool Road, Saunders Park off Chebucto Road, and Green Road in Dartmouth — will remain open.”
You’re correct. I’ve updated it to correct the error. Saunders park is being closed; it’s the berms on University Avenue that will remain open. Once again, I regret the error.
“And so we’ll come back and have another conversation with somebody, and work through what they need.”
Dropping off a note isn’t a conversation but it seems to be considered as one.
“How are you? Where are you? What do you need? What do you want?’ “
And if what you need and want doesn’t fit what we want we will forcibly remove you on Feb 26. Hmmmm
In Edmonton recently when they did the evictions they took all of the belongings that couldn’t be carried of those they evicted and threw them in the trash. That’s a cruel and unusual thing to do to somebody who is already struggling.
I hope HRM has more humanity than that and can put any of the a-hole officers or city workers on leave or other duties for the day to avoid what happened last time.