Canada/Halifax Regional Council approves homelessness strategy

Halifax Regional Council voted in favor of recommendations to combat homelessness presented in a municipal staff report.

These recommendations include the addition of six new designated camp sites, including Victoria Park and Grand Parade, two locations where many tents are already set up.

If we didn't recognize these camp sites, we'd be preventing the people who live there from getting services," noted Councillor Shawn Cleary during the council discussions.

They need water, they need portable toilets, they need garbage collection. We need all those things there.

Councillor Paul Russell did try to amend the recommendation to exclude Victoria Park and Grand Parade. The municipality is discussing how to proceed with the annual Remembrance Day ceremony in Grand Parade.

A lot of people have contacted me and said they want to do things at Grand Parade and Victoria Park," said Paul Russell.

I'm not saying that just because these sites aren't designated, that we'd evict people. What I'm suggesting is that we'd be able to offer them a better place if there was another designated site there that offered additional services.

Halifax General Manager Cathie O'Toole said that if these locations were removed, others would have to be found. She pointed out that there wasn't enough space for everyone with the current number of designated camping areas.

We're a bit worried, we don't want to do something that ends up with another August 18, 2021-type experience," she said, referring to a large protest in downtown Halifax during which police removed shelters.

The advantage of designating these two sites is that if we can reduce it to a manageable number from a public health and safety point of view, then it may be manageable to encourage people to leave that site for another location.

Signs will be posted at designated sites to indicate the tent limit. Municipal staff have recommended that 8 tents be allowed at Grand Parade and 12 at Victoria Park. Measures will be taken to monitor the number of people present on the sites.

Councillor Sam Austin agreed that none of the choices of campsites was a good one, but that people had to go somewhere.

Designating a site gives people living there in survival mode the certainty that they can stay, that they won't be harassed and that no one will ask them to leave," he said.

Last week, the province announced millions of dollars in new funding for a small housing community in Lower Sackville that will open next summer, 100 temporary ephemeral shelters in Halifax and a new night shelter.

Source: ici.radio-canada.ca/