About half of the 7,000 Nova Scotians waiting for public housing are seniors

Nova Scotia’s deputy housing minister says about half of the 7,000 households on the wait-list for public housing are composed of seniors.

Byron Rafuse told a legislature committee today that seniors also compose more than half of the 17,500 low-income residents living in Nova Scotia’s 11,200 public housing units.

NDP Leader Claudia Chender says the government should have an “enormous amount of shame” about the number of seniors who are struggling with the cost of the living.

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However, Rafuse says the government is making “fairly good” progress toward shrinking the wait-list, adding that the province has reduced the time it takes to prepare a unit for a new tenant after the previous residents move out.

Brian Ward, the head of the Nova Scotia Public Housing Agency, says unit turnaround times have been reduced by 25 per cent since December 2022.

It now takes 134 days, or almost four-and-a-half months, for the agency to get a unit ready for a new tenant.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 2, 2024.