Halifax mayor says city is past the worst of its housing crisis, advocates disagree

HALIFAX — The worst of Halifax’s homeless crisis is over, says the city’s new mayor, who wants to see encampments closed as quickly as possible — even as homelessness advocates vigorously disagree that the situation is improving.

Andy Fillmore, elected mayor Oct. 19 after resigning over the summer as Liberal MP for Halifax, says the city is coming out the other side of its dire housing shortage because of the new shelter and housing options available.

“I have great hopes that we, together with the province, are going to solve this housing crisis,” he said in a recent interview.

Nova Scotia funds 390 shelter beds in Halifax, with 40 more expected this winter. Additionally, since 2023 the province has opened an 185-unit transitional shelter in Halifax run by Adsum for Women and Children, and has established 50 single-occupancy shelters in the municipality, with 85 more planned for the area.

The Affordable Housing Association of Nova Scotia says that as of Dec. 10, 1,238 people in the Halifax Regional Municipality reported they were homeless. That figure does not include the more than 200 children who are homeless and receive support from Adsum, said Sheri Lecker, the group’s executive director.

It’s “misinformed,” Lecker said, to say that the peak of the housing shortage has passed. “It’s damaging to repeat this narrative that the worst of things are behind us … the numbers are growing,” she said in an interview.

Adsum, which has historically focused on women and children but is currently supporting all genders, provides permanent housing for about 100 people, oversees another 200 people in shelter beds, and offers emergency housing units and hotel rooms to more than 300 people — including 217 children.

“We are receiving calls, knocks on the door and so on, every day, and we have to turn people away.” Fillmore’s view, Lecker added, “is not a reflection of what we are seeing.”

Steve Wilsack, the head of Housing First Nova Scotia, said that despite the lack of provincial data on homelessness, it appears the number of unhoused people is growing in the Halifax area and across the province.

“It baffles me, the state we’re in. Nothing has changed at all, in fact, I believe things have only gotten worse,” he said in an interview.

New homeless encampments are popping up across the city, he said, including in rural areas.

“And then there’s the hidden homeless. Winter is here and there’s a group of individuals living in sheds … setting up their own camp in the woods,” he said, adding that many will avoid traditional shelters “because they’ve been robbed, they’ve been beaten, and they’re trying to protect their well-being and their belongings.”

The volume of new housing and shelter options isn’t enough to meet the demand, Wilsack said, and the number of newly homeless people is growing every week. “People can’t pay their rent, they can’t make their mortgage payments … there are people with jobs who are being pushed into homelessness,” he said.

Lecker, who has requested a meeting with Fillmore to discuss the state of housing, said she and other service providers are desperate for solutions.

Following the rapid rise in unhoused people after the COVID-19 pandemic, officials in Halifax began designating certain public spaces where homeless people could set up tents, and where the city would offer basic necessities like water and portable toilets.

But on the municipal campaign trail, Fillmore said he wanted fewer designated encampments in the city.

He is not the only politician to make this push. Ontario Premier Doug Ford recently introduced legislation with a similar objective of clearing out homeless encampments. Ford’s new bill would introduce stronger trespass laws and fines or jail time for illegal drug use in public.

During the interview, Fillmore said he wants to move the city in a “new direction” — which is why his first motion as mayor was to eliminate Halifax’s list of nine sites that council has approved for potential use as homeless encampments.

“We need to move as quickly as we can towards the elimination of encampments — at the rate that alternatives come online to move people into better situations with roofs over their heads and walls around them and supports,” he said.

When asked if there are enough “alternatives” for those who need them, Fillmore said the numbers “change by the day” but he is aware of vacancies across the shelter system.

Council approved the nine sites in July, after the four green spaces the city had previously designated as encampments became full. Tents have been pitched on many of the nine sites, but council has so far only officially designated two of those locations for encampments.

“I believe that we don’t need those seven expansion sites,” Fillmore said. “So why keep them on a list? Because the list is having the effect of creating anxiety in the community. I can tell you stories about talking to residents adjacent to some of the parks on that list, and they’re beside themselves.”

Fillmore’s motion to retract the list sparked a tense debate among councillors at a Dec. 3 council meeting — and failed in a tight 8-7 vote. Five of the seven votes in favour of removing the list came from newly elected members, including Fillmore.

The mayor said he was “a little puzzled” by the results, but the vote was “still a success to me, even though the motion failed.”

“It was successful in signalling a new direction for the municipality.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 17, 2024.

Lyndsay Armstrong, The Canadian Press