The homeless encampment in Grand Parade in front of City Hall in Halifax is seen after eviction notices were served on Feb. 7.Darren Calabrese/The Canadian Press
Residents at a downtown Halifax homeless encampment say they were blindsided Wednesday morning when they awoke to find eviction notices from the city zip tied to the cables of their red ice-fishing tents.
The notices from Halifax Regional Municipality told people living at several centrally located encampments that they must leave by Feb. 26.
The city said it’s removing the special designations that permit unhoused people to set up tents in five of its 11 encampments because they pose a safety risk and there are better options now in place.
The eviction notices were posted amid a worsening housing and affordability crisis and only days after a historic snowstorm pummelled the city with 60 to 80 centimetres of snow.
One of the encampments is in Halifax’s Grand Parade, which is home to between 15 and 20 people. Ric Young, who has been living in a tent in the public square for about six months, said he’s not going anywhere. He said he would rather sleep on the streets than be relocated to a shelter or temporary housing, which the city has offered to help him find.
“I’m looking for housing that I can have my own door locked, a shower and a bed where I get up, go to work and do the same thing,” said Mr. Young, a cook who used to work at a local tavern.
“I’m staying. We’re all staying. They’re going to have to try to kick us out of here.”
Nova Scotia recently opened a $3-million, 50-bed emergency shelter at the Halifax Forum, but some unhoused residents say the facility is worse than a tent because it lacks privacy and security. The shelter, which is in an auditorium-like space with cots and yellow curtains between beds, doesn’t provide the same level of safety, comfort or support afforded to people tenting at the downtown square, Mr. Young said.
He said a number of people have showed up at the Grand Parade encampment in the middle of the night in need of a place to stay after being turned away or kicked out of the Forum shelter.
The city said in a statement that there is a significant safety risk to those in and around encampments, including the chance of frostbite and predatory behaviour such as gang victimization, human trafficking, assault and sexual exploitation. Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency has responded to 110 calls for service at encampments over the past year, including several for fires.
The city points to violence arising from encampments, accumulation of human feces, biohazardous waste, weapons and drug paraphernalia around them; food waste leading to issues with rodents; and uncontrolled fires and propane cylinder explosions.
Halifax Mayor Mike Savage said Wednesday the designated sites were “always intended to be a stopgap measure until better, fixed-roof options were available for people who are homeless.”
“And now we have a variety of options that are in place,” he told a news conference. “We need to get people out from tents into some place where they have a chance to start thinking about tomorrow.”
Halifax’s chief administrative officer Cathie O’Toole said negotiations will continue one-on-one with residents over the next few weeks before tents are removed. She said there is nothing spontaneous about this decision and it was not made in response to public pressure.
Steve Wilsack, a volunteer who has been supporting the Grand Parade encampment and living in a tent there, said he was “shocked beyond belief,” by the eviction notice, especially after 2½ days of living through one of the worst winter storms in recent history.
“It’s no different than someone being given a rent eviction and getting a moment’s notice to leave,” he said.
Mr. Wilsack added that the people that live there can’t afford the high cost of rent in Halifax.
Rent prices in the city are above the national average and are worsening affordability for low-income households, says a Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation report published in January. The average cost of rent for a two-bedroom apartment increased 11 per cent to $1,628 in 2023 over the previous year, compared with the national average rent growth of 8 per cent or $1,359.
As of Jan. 30, there were 1,112 people that self-reported as being homeless in the Halifax area, and Nova Scotia says there are 255 shelter beds in the Halifax Regional Municipality.
With a report from The Canadian Press