When Nova Scotia-born Steven Blenus was laid off from his job, he says he quickly ran out of options for places he could afford to live and ended up in a shelter.
“I had no place to go and I didn’t know who to talk to,” Blenus said.
While he says shelters provide an opportunity for those who are in ‘desperate need’ of a place to sleep, he never felt safe staying there and was frantically trying to find other housing options.
READ MORE: Halifax council approves plan for more affordable housing
“You got guys coming from prison and jail coming there and they still got a chip on their shoulder,” Blenus said.
He says he was lucky enough to find a room to rent in a south end Halifax rooming house that is one of only 19 licensed rooming houses left in the municipality, according to statistics from the city.
“There’s not a lot of choices for them. There’s barely any good rooming houses left. Basically, they’re one step away from being on the street,” said Tammie Sarkar, the rooming house manager for the residence Blenus lives in.
WATCH: Declining number of rooming houses pushing affordability ‘out of reach’ for many
Sarkar says ‘declining’ rooming houses throughout the urban core is making it harder for people to find safe opportunities for housing.
“The people that live in rooming houses are the same as everybody else. They’re just trying to get through life and they’re not any different than you, I mean I have a great bunch of people who live here,” Sarkar said.
The municipality says it’s working on affordable housing solutions and that the ‘future of rooming houses’ are part of the discussion.
Not only from an inclusion perspective but from a stigma perspective.
Sarkar says that the stigma ‘needs to go’ in order to provide people with the opportunities for housing they deserve.
“We all get along, we joke around, we do dinners for Christmas like, just get rid of the stigma is all I’m pretty much saying.”