Dale Hicks, president of the Rising Tide housing non-profit based in Moncton, said plans for a 20-unit apartment building with a clinic on the first floor are officially scrapped.
“The reason the clinic is so important is because the clinic is for the high-acuity individuals,” he said in an interview on Wednesday.
“The (homeless individuals) who most people see on the street pushing carts. They’re the ones that need basically 24/7 oversight and care and we can’t provide that in a Rising Tide property.”
The Salvus clinic, an organization that provides medical care to unhoused and otherwise vulnerable people in the Moncton area, pulled out of the project in February, saying they don’t have the capacity to expand their programming.
While Rising Tide provides case management services for residents with less complex needs, they can’t provide clinical services with a partner.
Hicks said he approached the province to try to find a solution to keep the project alive in February.
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“We had set a deadline of March 20th because we had some decisions to make with our funding that were time sensitive,” Hicks said.
On Monday, Rising Tide made their final decision to scrap the project.
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“March 20th came and went and I guess the project is dead,” he said.
Hicks said the 10 per cent of people who have been evicted from Rising Tide properties fall into the category of those who would benefit from the clinical housing project they had in mind.
“If I had my way I’d put four clinics up in Moncton tomorrow morning. I’d have four clinics in Moncton to deal with the high-acuity individuals,” he said.
The organization received over $15 million in funding from the federal, provincial and municipal governments to build 160 housing units by March 2024.
“We got a lot of work to do in the next 12-14 months and we didn’t want to spend any more time going back and forth on whether the clinic was going to be part of that or not,” he said.
A spokesperson from the provincial government told Global News on Wednesday that “discussions are ongoing” regarding the housing and clinic combination.
“Partners like Rising Tide play an important role in the housing continuum and the department will continue to support efforts to improve housing,” the statement read.
Hicks said he was hopeful funding for the project would be announced in the budget announced on Tuesday.
While he applauded certain measures announced in the budget such as a $3.2-million investment in shelters, he said there’s nothing that “hits hard” at solving the homelessness issue.
“The missing piece is the clinical services for the high-acuity (individuals),” he said.
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