The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Halifax OKS emergency relief
$500,000 allocated for ‘temporary accommodation, renting of hotel (rooms) and other spaces’
Halifax regional council allotted $500,000 Tuesday for an emergency plan to address temporary housing for the homeless in the city.
Mayor Mike Savage asked that procedural rules surrounding the involvement of the finance standing committee and a staff report be waived to “direct the CAO to implement a range of emergency supportive housing and emergency shelter accommodations for those who are unhoused in collaboration with and based on feedback from community social service providers and the Province of Nova Scotia to address immediate and emergent needs.”
The emergency measures would include “the fit-up of spaces for temporary accommodation, renting of hotel (rooms) and other spaces,” the mayor said in his emergency motion before the 16-member council.
Savage asked council to authorize chief administrative officer Jacques Dube “to spend up to $500,000 from fiscal services in respect to addressing these needs and report (regularly) on the use of said funds.”
The final part of Savage's motion directed Dube “to work with the (provincial) Department of Community Services and community service providers on a needs analysis to determine how many people are unhoused, how many of them are currently tenting or occupying other forms of shelter in the parks and other public lands,” and how many can be accommodated in a safer manner.
Council voted unanimously to waive the procedural rules and followed with a unanimous vote to pass the mayor's emergency motion.
TEMPORARY SHELTERS REMOVED
The motion comes in the wake of a Halifax Regional Police response two weeks ago to remove temporary shelters from three HRM properties.
The police action turned violent when protesters opposed the removals of temporary shelters at the old public library property on Spring Garden Road.
The result was 24 arrests and charges of obstruction, assaulting police and resisting arrest. All those arrested were released the same day but the optics of video showing police combatting protesters who supported unhoused people left a black mark on the municipality.
After introducing the motion, Savage, who was out of town with family during the online council meeting, told elected municipal councillors that he had written a few weeks ago to each of the parties in the provincial election about several issues, the first of which was affordable housing.
“The need for affordable housing continues to grow,” Savage said of his message to the provincial political parties. “As the largest urban centre in Nova Scotia, we face a uniquely urgent need that requires responsive policy options, tools and legislative amendments to address the affordable housing crisis.”
Savage said while the province holds jurisdictional responsibility for housing and social services, “we feel responsible and accountable for the health and well-being of residents.
“That is a fact.”
Lee-anne Poole’s connection to the Halifax Fringe runs deep.
Currently its executive director, the writer and producer first found her way to the stage when she was 16 and presented her debut play at the start of a career that has blossomed with works like Splinters, which became a feature film directed by Thom Fitzgerald.
“I did it because it seemed so unreal to me that there was this festival you could apply for, and no one could tell you no. And no one really cared what you put on stage, and you get to do whatever you want,” says Poole over coffee at Alteregos Cafe.
“I really love the fact that there are very seasoned professionals in the festival, but there are also people like me when I was 16 who say, ‘Oh, I think I want to do this ... and why not?’ It’s an opportunity and a space for someone who’s never done anything like this before.”
This month, Halifax Fringe returns with a mix of polished and punk theatre from Sept. 2 to 12. The shows are live, inperson and, due to scheduling a festival during a period of COVID-19 travel restrictions, all local.
Long-range planning for a multi-artist festival in 2021 has certainly been a challenge for Poole and her dedicated team of board members and organizers, not knowing exactly what limits would be in place when September rolled around. But with roughly 25 shows in four main venues, Poole can feel that old prefringe excitement building, and is eager to see how this year’s event develops.
“2019 was really great, we were back at Neptune Theatre for the first time in many years, and the box office was hitting all of these new records,” she recalls.
“And then (hurricane) Dorian happened, and we had to cancel the last two days of the festival, the final weekend, which would have definitely been the largest box office for those artists. And then in 2020 ... a pandemic.”
There was a Halifax Fringe of sorts in 2020, as the event marked its 30th anniversary. Some favourite shows from years past were re-staged for online viewing, and sketch troupe Hello City took to the Shakespeare By the Sea space in Point Pleasant Park to do improv pieces based solely on Fringe play blurbs from the last three decades.
“That was very funny and fun, and at that point it was nice to be in a space where
you could laugh and hear other people laugh,” says Poole.
This year, restrictions still require physically distanced seating indoors, meaning lower capacity at Halifax Fringe’s four main venues and requiring advance ticket purchases up to 24 hours before showtime through Tickethalifax.com.
The stages include Halifax Fringe’s traditional home base at the Bus Stop Theatre — at the tail-end of its new renovations — Neptune Theatre’s Scotiabank Stage, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia’s Lecture Theatre and Point Pleasant Park’s Cambridge Battery.
There is also a “BYOV” series for site-specific shows in Point Pleasant Park’s Quarry Pond, Sir Sandford Fleming Park (The Dingle) and Breaking Circus Studio at 2164 Barrington St.
The something-for-everyone smorgasbord assortment is in full effect with personal dramas, magic, stand-up comedy, Legacy Circus feats, Lions Den Audio Theatre’s classic radio thriller The Shadow, and the “immersive outdoor one hippo rap musical” Hippoposthumous.
Poole’s personal picks include the return of writer/ performer Jane Kansas (My Funeral: The Dry Run) with her chronicle of a pandemicera health crisis, My First Heart Attack, and the workshop-in-concert version of singer-songwriter Gabrielle Papillon’s musical collaboration with Avery Jean Brennan, Mind the Light, set in a historic lighthouse.
There are also chances to gather, learn and create at workshops with poet/playwright Shauntay Grant, zine maker Colleen Macisaac and the mask makers at Theatre du Poulet, bringing back that communal spirit that is so essential to Halifax Fringe.
“I feel like there’s been something missing after a year-and-a-half,” says Poole. “Meeting up with people in a theatre lobby after a show, making a joke, and someone saying ‘That should have been this,’ and the ideas snowball into something else.
“All the things that you don’t get over Zoom.”
For more information, visit halifaxfringe.ca.