The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Solution requires ‘rural perspective’
The housing and homeless crisis looks a lot different in Lunenburg or Port Hawkesbury than it does in downtown Halifax.
“In Halifax or in Toronto, when you walk down the street, you see people who are obviously living outside, sleeping in the rough, but in Lunenburg, we don't see anybody like that or in Bridgewater,” said Helen Lanthier, a member of the South Shore Housing Action Coalition, a group comprised of community organizations, individuals and eight councillors representing six municipalities on the South Shore.
“It's not obvious and you don't think about it when you are walking down the street in Bridgewater but there are people who sleep under the bridge in Bridgewater, there are people around our small communities sleeping in the woods,” Lanthier said.
“They are not visible, and when they are not visible, it's difficult to get a sense of the homelessness that exists.”
Lanthier told the legislature's natural resources and economic development committee during a virtual meeting Thursday to address affordable housing that rural areas are being shut out of the housing crisis decisionmaking circle and that rural housing problems are just as real as those in urban areas of the province.
A support worker from Bridgewater came to a coalition meeting in January and reported five referrals in one day for people who were unhoused “and she had no place, none, to put them,” Lanthier said.
“This is not just an extreme need, this is a crisis,” Lanthier, quoting the support worker, said in a phone interview Friday.
Lanthier said people are coming out of addiction rehabilitation and from services with mental health and have no place to go.
“Rural homelessness presents differently than urban homelessness. It's often hidden but because it is hidden and not usually measured, that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist,” Lanthier told the committee Thursday.
“A huge issue for rural Nova Scotia is a lack of or scarcity of reliable and consistent data. Without that data, it puts us at a distinct disadvantage when we are trying to develop housing and applying for funding.”
Lanthier said urban areas can rely on shelter counts and have volunteers walk along the streets to take information.
“They have a sense of how many people are homeless, but in rural areas, not so much,” she said.
The hidden scourge of homelessness or insecure housing in rural areas runs the gamut of youth “couch surfing,” to people who can't afford household fixes or upgrades that would allow them to live comfortably, Lanthier said.
“There is couch surfing, there is living in tents, there's sleeping rough in the woods, sleeping in cars,” she said.“i had a client a few years ago who was sleeping – staying – in an unheated cottage with her two children. This was in the fall and it was starting to get cold.”
Lanthier told the committee that 65 per cent of Nova Scotians live in rural communities, according to the Statistics Canada definition of rural.
“There is a growing concern in our communities that access to resources for affordable housing and housing related services for those most at risk for homelessness or housing vulnerability are becoming more and more centralized in Halifax,” she said.
Lanthier said rural communities are at the heart of the province and provide a strong foundation for its economic sustainability and prosperity.
“To address economic development, though, we must recognize the critical role that accessible, affordable housing plays in not only supporting individuals but the sustainability and vibrancy of all of our small towns,” she said.
Lanthier said access to a range of affordable housing options and housing related services is clearly not equitable across this province.
“This inequity has to be addressed,” she said. “Rural communities cannot be represented fully by those who do not live in rural areas.”
The lack of rural representation around the decisionmaking table was reinforced at the committee meeting by Dave Ritcey, the Progressive Conservative MLA for Trurobible Hill-millbrook-salmon River, who asked about the makeup of the recently struck 17-member Affordable Housing Commission that has been tasked with identifying longterm solutions for affordable housing.
Martin Laycock, chief operating officer for housing and sustainability in the new provincial infrastructure and housing department, replied that there are representatives on the commission from HRM and CBRM and a representative from Inverness and Amherst on the subcommittees.
“I'd also point out, too, that with the Affordable Housing Commission, we are reaching out to municipalities both through a survey and through focus groups,” Laycock said. “Our intent is to engage as many municipal folks as possible from across the province, to get their feedback and to ensure that the affordable housing commission has the information necessary to come up with recommendations that are meaningful not just for HRM but for the province as a whole.”
Laycock said there are 17 experts on the commission who focus on the practical everyday realities and impacts on housing within the province.
“We perceive it to be a big problem,” Lanthier said of commission representation. “From what we know, all 17, or all 16, not counting the one from Sydney, are Halifaxbased. My thought was, yeah, they are experts, but can you not find experts outside of Halifax. Can there not be a sense that there is an expertise that can exist within a rural community that has something to offer, particularly from a rural perspective.”
Lanthier said the commission is a really good move but it should go by the axiom nothing about us without us.
“If you are going to make decisions that impact the people on the ground, then they should be represented.”
Lanthier said proportional representation on the commission would result in eight members from rural areas.
“If we sit at tables and plan out this wonderful strategy to help people, if you don't ask them, it doesn't work. It's a waste of time.”