Nova Scotia’s Worsening Housing Crisis Prompts Some Difficult Questions

 

By Kendall Worth

It is time for an update on the housing crisis. It has been almost a year since I last wrote directly about the housing and homelessness crises being faced in our province. I have however referred to housing in many blogs as one of the greatest challenges that face my community of low-income and disabled Nova Scotians.

Over the past year, much has been happening on the housing front, so I decided that now is the time for some updates on what I have seen and heard.

• One rare piece of local good news is that Shubie Park in Dartmouth will be allowed to host RVs through the winter months for those people who now live full-time in their recreational vehicles.
• On the down side, the City has recently issued eviction notices to residents of the tent community on University Avenue, ordering that the tents and people be removed by November 1^st, 2024. 
• In the meantime, homeless shelters continue to be full to capacity and local government and agencies are scrambling to identify additional spaces for the winter months. I am told that soup kitchens like Souls Harbour and Hope Cottage are currently feeding three times the number of clients they used to serve, which cannot be a good sign.
• In my day to life, I talk with those living in homeless    encampments, and hear from many that these encampments provide a type of community that they never had when they lived in their own apartments. Living in adjoining tents, struggling to meet their day to day needs actually generates a type of community that mitigates their long-standing social isolation. This is true, even when the stress that dominates this community also serves to increase their individual anxiety levels, given that all their neighbours are also homeless and struggling.
• With regards to Government, in the recent Fall Legislative Session, Premier Houston had the opportunity to address the housing crisis through new policies and programs. The one positive step taken was the decision to extend the 5% rent cap for 2 more years. But the other policy changes proposed will do nothing to address the housing crisis and may just increase the number of homeless people.
• Finally, and most importantly to me, it seems that more and more persons with disabilities are becoming part of Halifax’s homeless population. This is just not right.

Sadly, as I write this blog in October, 2024, -Thanksgiving is just a week away. Scrambling to meet rent payments – or struggling with homelessness -  are nothing to be thankful for. So instead of offering up thanks, I offer up some simple questions, instead.  

Firstly, how much longer is Government going to stand by and allow this housing crises to worsen?

Some people that I talk to insist that Government is doing everything it can. They blame instead the housing market, and more specifically, greedy corporate landlords as the source of the problem, by inflating rents and unfairly abusing loopholes in government policy and legislation, related to renovictions.

Which prompts my second question: Is it not obvious to everyone, including the Government, that private landlords are widely abusing current loopholes by refusing to renew tenant leases and then raising rents for new tenants well above 5%?

Which in turn leads me to a third question: do private landlords and Government  understand that ordinary Nova Scotians cannot afford rents from $1700 and beyond?  Do they understand that what they are doing will only increase the numbers of homeless in this province?

I will insert here a short note on how the rapid rise in power costs has contributed to worsening the housing crisis. As I have written elsewhere, NS Power is not a utility that is friendly to low income households. Price increases for electricity have been a long-standing issue for low income households, from well before the current housing crisis. And while statistics are not kept on the % of leases in which power costs are integrated into rent charges, it is clear that tenants have been seriously hit by the combined effect of increased rent and electricity costs.

 And finally, a question about Nova Scotians living with disabilities and the threat of homelessness.  I have written frequently about the inadequacies of the provincial Disability Support Program (DSP).

So, my final question: What is to be done to protect DSP clients from becoming homeless?  Can NOTHING be done to protect these vulnerable people from losing the roof over their head and ending up in a tent or shelter?

There is NO EXCUSE for anyone to be homeless, as far as I am concerned. And not least of all, DSP clients who are constrained from securing full-time employment.

These are all complicated issues and questions. But the bottom line is simple enough: our province has to come together to address  - and SOLVE - this housing crisis, NOW!  

Only then will Nova Scotians truly have reason to give thanks. 

Kendall Worth is an award-winning anti-poverty activist who lives with disabilities and tries to make ends meet on income assistance.