Michel Babineau finally feels like he’s back on his feet.
After a long winter of homelessness – spent camping in Halifax’s Victoria Park – he moved into a room at the Chebucto Inn two months ago, allowing him to take part in everyday activities that some might take for granted.
“I can lock the door, I can take a shower, I can watch TV,” Babineau said. “I can think of other things than survival on the street.”
This newfound stability also allows him to work on his resume and apply for jobs. Now that he has an address to put on his job applications, his future’s looking brighter.
“I’m looking for work now,” said Babineau, a former computer programmer. “So it’s a step up in the right direction.”
Babineau is one of several unhoused people staying at the Chebucto Inn, a family-run business on Lady Hammond Road.
Natasha Compton, one of the motel’s owners, said her father came to Nova Scotia as an immigrant and started out as a dishwasher.
“We’ve always been focused on giving back – you know, how can we help people?” she said. “And with this housing crisis, there has been a real need for people just to have shelter.”
Compton said the inn is working with a number of organizations in the city to offer support for those living rough.
“Is it a solid fix? No, but it’s something that helps people in the short term, and then hopefully down the road we can work together on a more long-term solution to get these people the homes that they actually need,” said Compton.
Babineau is happy with his new digs, but he remains concerned for those left outside. With warmer weather, tents are becoming a more common sight in local parks.
According to the Affordable Housing Association of Nova Scotia, as of May 2, there were at least 923 actively homeless people in the Halifax area.
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About a dozen tents currently dot Victoria Park, located in the heart of the city. With the tenters in a highly visible area just off Spring Garden Road – one of Halifax’s most popular shopping districts – Babineau worries about what will happen to them as the weather heats up.
“Summer is coming, the tourist season is coming,” he said. “Spring Garden’s a rich area, they’re not going to allow these tents to stay there all summer.”
Encampment evictions not the goal
Halifax Mayor Mike Savage said the city expects to continue to see tents popping up as the weather warms up and the housing crisis persists.
“There’s a sense among some people that the big issue for people who are homeless is winter, and it magically goes away (in warmer weather.) And it doesn’t,” he told Global News.
“Our folks on the ground – navigators and housing support workers – are telling us that this is more of an issue, and we see it in places like Victoria Park and other areas.”
Addressing concerns about a potential encampment eviction – like what the city saw in August 2021 when the forcible removal of an encampment in the Spring Garden Road area prompted a massive protest – Savage said the city aims to avoid a similar situation.
“Our goal is not to do that,” he said. “In 2021, we were assured there was a place for everybody to go. And frankly, there wasn’t.”
Savage took note of the “contentious” Meagher Park, where some unhoused people began living after the August 2021 encampment eviction. It was cleared out and “physically secured” last summer following “deteriorating health and safety conditions at the park” and complaints from residents in the area.
Savage said those living near encampments have valid concerns and want to see people housed.
“People who want to find solutions to encampments are not mean or vicious people. They’re people trying to live in the community they love,” he said.
“At the same time, the people who are homeless are just trying to get by. It’s awful hard to get a job and sustain yourself and your family if you don’t know where you’re going to sleep that night.”
He said the city is in desperate need of more shelters and affordable housing.
“We don’t want people to be living in tents, but they’re in tents because there are no other options for them, in most cases,” said Savage.
“We want people to be in proper shelters, and eventually into housing that suits their needs.”
Savage said the city has spent a “lot of money” trying to help address the issue, such as building modular housing units in Halifax and Dartmouth, setting up designated camping sites, and working with the province to create a 24-hour drop-in centre.
But he said the municipality can only do so much, as housing is a provincial mandate.
“At the end of the day, this is a provincial issue that requires more resources, in my view,” he said. “We absolutely need deeply affordable housing.”
Karla MacFarlane, Nova Scotia’s minister of community services and the minister responsible for homelessness, told reporters Thursday that the province has a “very good relationship” with the municipality and are working on a number of initiatives to address the issue.
“We know that, certainly, homelessness is one of the main priorities to solve here in HRM and across the province, so we continue to work with all our partners and municipalities, trying to do the best we can to find permanent long-term solutions to housing,” she said.
MacFarlane couldn’t speak directly to affordable housing but said the province has made a number of investments over the last year to get people off the streets.
Most recently, she pointed to the Doubletree by Hilton hotel in Dartmouth, which is being leased by the province to be used as a shelter. It has 190 beds and will also host an on-site clinic that serves shelter clients, as well as people referred for nursing care by Nova Scotia Health.
She said this is the first project of its kind in Atlantic Canada and said the province will monitor its success to see if it can be expanded.
“If this is a successful model, we will certainly take lessons learned from it and we will implement it elsewhere in the province where need be, or where any other partners want to begin such an initiative with us,” said MacFarlane.
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