Halifax mayor says there's a 'shared responsibility' when it comes to homelessness crisis

A week after Halifax Regional Council approved after nine potential designated encampment sites, Mayor Mike Savage says there is a sense of urgency when it comes to the homelessness crisis, especially among city and provincial staff.

“The relationship between our city and provincial staff is really good and they do treat it as a crisis. Our staffs are meeting regularly. They had a summit meeting of sorts last Thursday to say, ‘These are the crisis issues that we have. What can we do about it?’” explained Savage during an interview with CTV Atlantic’s Todd Battis on Wednesday.

“There are some things that are very positive that are happening. Some have already happened but more are coming down the pipe, but it is a crisis and people are homeless. And for the cities across the country, the reason we’re mainly involved in it is because people camp on our land. We tend to own the parks and the playgrounds and things like that.”

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He says although the city doesn’t have a jurisdiction for things like homelessness, staff is working hard with provincial counterparts to find solutions.

“I think there are some positive things that are coming,” says Savage.

Savage says it would be a good idea to have a national plan.

“We didn’t even have a national housing strategy from the early 90s until 2018. We do now, which is a fortunate thing. In the federal budget this year, Minister Sean Fraser put money in specifically around the encampment issue, so I think slowly it’s getting dealt with, but there’s no question that when it comes to housing and homelessness, the feds kind of have the money, the province has the jurisdiction, but the cities have the problem.”

Halifax council recently approved seven potential encampment sites in Halifax and two in Dartmouth. HRM says the four designated sites are 300 per cent over capacity, which is leaving people to find shelter elsewhere.

The seven potential encampment sites in Halifax include:

• Windsor Street Park
• BiHi Park
• Chain Lake Park
• Cogswell Park
• Glebe Street Park
• A portion of Halifax Common
• Point Pleasant Park

The two designated sites in Dartmouth would be located at:

• Bissett Road Park
• Geary Street green space

Halifax Common is pictured. (Source: CTV News Atlantic)

In the past, Savage has said he doesn’t like the idea of encampment sites being on the Halifax Common, something he still agrees with today.

“I don’t think anybody on city council wants the Commons to be a tent site. The simple fact is people are living there now,” he said. “I’m sure you drive by the Commons every now and then and there are camp sites all over the Commons now. So the idea is, do you just let them continue to grow like that or do you try to manage them for the benefit of those who are homeless, as well as for the broader community who wants to use that as a recreation site?

“So, I’m not in favour of having people there, but if they’re going to be there, and if we don’t have a place to put them, which has to happen legally before we can move people, then let’s try to manage it so that it’s a safer environment.”

Savage said he also didn’t support Point Pleasant Park as an encampment site, but just like the Commons, people are already living there.

“Completely unsupervised in a dangerous situation so I can see why people would want to organize that… and we may not have to use these designated sites. We hope we don’t and I certainly hope we don’t need to use Point Pleasant Park and a number of other ones,” he said.

Point Pleasant Park is pictured. (Source: CTV News Atlantic)

Savage says the risk of fires has been a part of the city’s discussions on designating certain areas.

“Fire is involved in our discussions with our homeless group and, yeah, it’s a problem,” he said. “We had a fire at an encampment in Dartmouth on the weekend. Nobody was hurt but unsurprisingly that that happened, unfortunately, when you have a lot of people who are living together trying to make their way through homelessness crisis that they are in personally, there’s always a danger. So, that’s why I didn’t support Point Pleasant Park but people are living in there now.”

The mayor says designating specific sites is all about trying to manage the encampment process.

“We don’t want to have people living on the street,” he said. “We shouldn’t, there’s no need for that. But they’re on our streets and the residents deserve to know that they can be safe as well as the people who are homeless.”

Tents set up at the Halifax Memorial Library had a deadline to move by July 15; however, as of Wednesday, they remain on that site.

Savage says it’s a difficult spot for the city due to a conflict in 2021 when people living in temporary shelters on that property were forcibly removed from the site.

During that eviction process, Halifax Regional Police officers deployed pepper spray and arrested several protesters.

“We’ve come a long way since 2021 but for a number of reasons, we need to clear that site, but we’re not going to charge in,” said Savage.

“And people complained in the spring when we designated Grand Parade and Victoria Park and a deadline slipped. But you know what, we were able to move people out of those sites, doing it in a sensible and reasonable way and then allowing those sites to be used for the public.”

Tents on the lawn of the old library in Halifax. (Source: Jonathan MacInnis/CTV News Atlantic)

The city is spending about a quarter-of-a-million dollars in tax money to remediate sites like Grand Parade. When asked if residents should be getting used to tax dollars going towards cleaning up old encampment sites, Savage said encampment sites should never be normalized.

“We have to recognize that people are there. These are human beings and they’re living there. And what we really need is permanent supportive housing, and the province is working on some of those things. It’s obviously not something that we can undertake, but we’ve done an awful lot of other things in an area that’s not our jurisdiction but I think we all believe we have a shared responsibility,” said Savage.

“So, we don’t want to have people moving back and forth and shuffled around on sites, but we do want public land, park land and areas to be used by everybody while we find permanent supportive housing for those who need it, and particularly for people who have high acuity issues, people with mental health and addiction issues. They’re kind of the ones who are getting left out of the system right now and they end up on the streets of Halifax, Moncton and Saint John, and all kinds of places.”

Grand Parade in Halifax is pictured. (Source: Jonathan MacInnis/CTV News Atlantic)

Although no one wants to see people living in tents and on the streets, there does appear to be a growing problem with litter and drug use in some encampment sites. Savage said permanent supportive housing would play an important role, adding that in the meantime, providing shelter for those people is a must.

“But also, you can’t just sort of let it happen without trying to manage it. What we’re trying to do in the city is say, ‘OK, if we have people living in the streets, let’s try to put them in places where they can get the support that they need where we can also provide managed services for them so that we can avoid some of those problems that have sprung up across this city and every city across the country.

“We should never lose sight of the fact that people need a permanent home and people need the supports, not only for themselves, but for the betterment of the community so everybody can share those public spaces once again.”

With files from CTV Atlantic's Todd Battis

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