New designated encampment sites for Halifax homeless ‘completely nuts,’ premier says

HALIFAX — Halifax council’s decision to choose recreation grounds in the heart of the city and a wooded south-end park as designated sites for homeless encampments is “completely nuts,” says Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston.

Following a cabinet meeting Thursday, the premier told reporters that the grounds, known as the Halifax Common, and Point Pleasant Park are busy public areas that are not appropriate places on which unhoused people should set up tents.

“When I saw some of the sites that the (Halifax Regional Municipality) has designated, I almost fell off my chair,” he said.

“It’s really hard to get the head around how the HRM council could think that these would be appropriate sites,” he continued, adding that while a “number” of the nine sites designated this week are “nuts,” the Common and Point Pleasant stand out.

Earlier this week Halifax City Hall approved nine new sites — seven on the Halifax peninsula and two across the harbour in Dartmouth — because the four existing designated homeless encampments are over capacity. Halifax officials said earlier this week there were about 85 people living in tents on the four green spaces the municipality has currently designated for unhoused people.

The Affordable Housing Association of Nova Scotia says that as of last Tuesday, 1,326 people in Halifax reported they were homeless. Of those people, 916 were considered chronically homeless, which means they had been unhoused for at least six months over the past year, or had spent a cumulative 18 months homeless over the past three years.

Houston said his government presented a list of about 40 alternative sites to the municipality for tiny homes and shelter communities, but he didn’t give details to reporters, nor did he provide an alternative for those who are already tenting in Point Pleasant or the Common.

Nova Scotia has so far installed 19 of the 200 self-contained, fibreglass shelters it promised for the province’s growing number of homeless residents more than eight months after first making the pledge. Nova Scotia announced in October 2023 it would invest $7.5 million for 200 shelters made by the American company Pallet, with 100 of them earmarked for Halifax.

Community Services Minister Brendan Maguire said after cabinet Thursday he expects 96 Pallet units to open across Kentville, Dartmouth and Whitney Pier in the coming months, with all 200 in place “within a few months.”

Halifax Mayor Mike Savage said in an interview Thursday afternoon that while council approved designating nine new sites for encampments, the city has not yet opened them up for tenting.

However, homeless Haligonians are already staying in tents in most of the newly designated spaces, he said.

“I think we can all agree that people should not be living on the streets, they shouldn’t be living in tents. But the fact is, they are. They’re living in places like Point Pleasant Park and the Halifax Common and many other locations,” Savage said in an interview Thursday afternoon.

The mayor noted that he voted against including Point Pleasant on the list of new designations for encampments due to the potential safety risks of people tenting in a densely wooded area, “but I also have to recognize that people are living in Point Pleasant Park in completely unsupervised circumstances at a hot time of year. That’s a dangerous situation. So if we’re going to have anybody in places like that, it’s best that we try to manage it.”

Nova Scotia’s opposition parties criticized the premier’s comments about the city’s designated site choices, with Dartmouth North NDP member Susan Leblanc calling Houston’s statement “immature” and “reprehensible.”

“Homelessness is so much worse than it was the last couple of years, which is directly related to this government’s housing policies and the government before them,” she said, adding that the existing fixed-term rental lease “loophole” and lack of rent control is pushing people out of affordable housing and into homelessness in her community, as is the government’s change in eligibility requirements for its rent-supplement program.

“People are in my office every single day who are about to be homeless, and then we lose track of them,” she said.

Liberal leader Zach Churchill said he agrees that Point Pleasant Park and the Halifax Common are not appropriate spots for encampments because they are busy and frequented by families, but he said the premier’s harsh comments are not helpful.

“Instead of stepping up and taking responsibility and working with the municipality, who are obviously making very tough decisions, he takes a swing at them because it’s politically advantageous,” he told reporters Thursday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 11, 2024.

Lyndsay Armstrong, The Canadian Press