All three levels of government announced $3.7 million in funding towards creating new housing for vulnerable Canadians in Dartmouth, N.S. Tuesday morning.
“This is how you take on a wicked problem like homelessness,” says Halifax Regional Municipality Mayor Mike Savage. “All orders of government coming together.”
Savage was joined by members of the provincial and federal governments to announce the federal investment for affordable housing, as part of the rapid housing initiative.
“We know that the Halifax Regional Municipality is one of the major urban centres that is seeing, you know, a rise in homelessness, a rise in people who are in encampments,” says federal Minister of Housing Ahmed Hussen.
“And our job is to make sure that we work with the province of Nova Scotia as well as the municipality of HRM, to make sure that we’re doing our part to help.”
The funding will help create 12 housing units, 50 per cent of which are dedicated specifically to women, as part of an ongoing project on True North Crescent in Dartmouth.
“Obviously rapid means rapid, it’s got to be done in one year,” says provincial Minister of Housing John Lohr. “That’s a challenge for anybody building, but that will be met.”
While this phase of the True North project focuses on 12 units, at its completion the project will provide 44 affordable housing units to the Dartmouth community at deeply affordable rates.
“If you don’t have security of place, it’s next to impossible to move on with anything else in your life,” says Jim Graham of the Affordable Housing Association of Nova Scotia.
Graham says the units are designed for families, in an ideal location and with job opportunities near by.
While the full project is still far from finished, the first units of affordable homes will be ready for residents in the new year.
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