In 2009, 1,718 people stayed in shelter beds, including 869 men, 574 women, 174 youth, and 99 children (under the age of 16) right here in Halifax.

Those numbers were compiled by Community Action on Homelessness, which releases its second annual Homelessness Report Card on March 24, in partnership with the region’s leading anti-poverty organizations.

“It shows that there are not sufficient housing options,” says John Hartling, CAH’s Director of Community Initiatives. Staying in an emergency shelter is no one’s first choice.  Those 1,718 people have fallen to the last resort and struggle to get out of it due to the lack of housing options.

This year’s report card provides data  that shows “persistent problem” The numbers are drawn from the Homeless Individuals and Families Information System (HIFIS),  Statistics Canada,  Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation,  Nova Scotia Department of Community Services, Service Canada, and independent research projects that Community Action on Homelessness delivered over the past year.

The report card identifies pressure points in the system and seeks proactive and lasting solutions.  For example, rent is going up faster than income assistance rates. New developments of affordable housing units are not keeping pace with demand.

“Decent housing costs money,” Grant Wanzel says. He’s a Dalhousie professor of Architecture focusing on housing policy and design, and the president of Creighton/Gerrish Development in Halifax “But a well-funded spectrum of low-income housing options, from emergency shelters to supportive housing to affordable home ownership, is ultimately more affordable than the health and social costs of the status quo.”

Nova Scotia has yet to see such a strategic investment. The lack of effective economic, social and health supports pushes people into homelessness. A recent CAH survey of Halifax homeless people found that 80% of them suffer chronic health problems and lack the supports they require.

People at risk of homelessness usually cannot afford housing on the open market, either because they work at low or minimum wage jobs that are often not full-time, or because they are dependent on income support programs such as Income Assistance. Instead, they rely on HRM’s 6,675 public housing units and 521 rent-subsidized units. Last year, just 10 new rent-subsidized units were added.  Since 1999 a total of 350 affordable, self-contained units have been added to the HRM’s social housing stock, which translates into just 35 new units per year. This is nowhere close to what’s needed. 

The NGO’s behind the homelessness report card seek greater government investment in a spectrum of affordable housing units. Without it, the 1,718 people using emergency shelter beds, and the countless other homeless people “sleeping rough” on the street or couch-surfing, have no chance of finding safe and secure  housing and little chance to improving their lives’.

“A strong investment in affordable housing is long overdue.  The numbers released in the 2010 Report Card on Homelessness are the sad result of years and years of doing nothing and a testimony of the lack of a comprehensive housing strategy”.
 
Community Action on Homelessness invites media to the launch of the Second Report Card on Homelessness in Halifax, March 24, 10:00 am at the Brunswick Street Mission, 2107 Brunswick Street. Project participants will share their stories. Panel members will be available to answer questions from the media.

Panellists:
Sheri Lecker, Executive Director - Adsum Centre for Women & Children
Pamela Harrison, Coordinator - Homeless Individuals and Families Information System & Transition House Association of Nova Scotia
Miia Suokonautio, Director of Programming – Phoenix Youth Programs
Wayne McNaughton, Co-Chair – Community Action on Homelessness
Janet Griffin, Tennant – Adsum Court (Supportive Housing)

For more information:

John Hartling, Director of Community Initiatives
Community Action on Homelessness
Tel: (902) 420-2186
Email:   jhartling@cahhalifax.org
www.cahhalifax.org

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