A Nova Scotia support agency for homeless people is holding a memorial service on Dec. 11 for a man found dead last week at the site of an ice fishing tent where he lived in Windsor, N.S.
Leslie Porter, director of the Windsor-West Hants Caremongers, says the man in his early 50s was a regular at a warming centre her group operates, adding that her community located 55 kilometres northwest of Halifax doesn’t have services, including addictions treatment, that could have helped him.
Connie Pollock, a volunteer at Caremongers and a friend of the man, identified him as William (Billy) Walsh and says that prior to becoming homeless he was a welder and — as a younger man — an avid motocross racer.
Pollock says Walsh was one week away from being placed in an affordable housing unit in Yarmouth, N.S., when he died. Had he lived in a “physically safer place,” she said, “it would have made the world of difference to him.”
“He was so excited to be able to move into an apartment and to reinvent himself.”
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In recent years, he had become receptive to receiving care, Pollock says, but services in Windsor are lacking.
Porter said, “If we had a facility in our area for mental health and addictions counselling, we believe he may have been someone who could have been helped.”
RCMP have confirmed that a man died Nov. 26 in the community and, while the death was not considered suspicious, an autopsy to determine the cause of death is being conducted by the medical examiner’s office.
“He was a good citizen . … and when COVID hit he lost his shop, he lost his apartment, he lost his dignity and ended up on the streets … and he just turned to social services for assistance a few months ago,” Pollock said.
Nova Scotia announced on Oct. 11, 2023, it was investing $7.5 million for a village of Pallet shelters — self-contained units to be used as temporary housing. Pallet shelters have been installed in Halifax and Kentville, N.S., but Pollock and Porter said these aren’t available yet in their community.
There are almost 530 shelter beds across the province, with about 400 of them in the Halifax Regional Municipality.
Kimm Kent, director of Peer Outreach Support Services and Education in Windsor, said, “we need supported housing … the reality is nobody should be having to sleep outside and not everybody can manage an apartment by themselves.”
Alyse Hand, a spokeswoman for the Department of Community Services, said in an email that the province is working with municipalities and non-profit support groups to help homeless people.
“Our focus is on creating long-term, sustainable housing supports and solutions that meet people where they are,” she wrote.
In Windsor, she said, the province is working with the Portal Youth Outreach association, which operates six units of supportive housing, and the West Hants Family Resource Centre, where the province funds one full-time housing support worker.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 2, 2024.
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