Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre to close 40-bed temporary emergency shelter

HALIFAX -

When its lease on the old brick building at 2029 North Park Street ends December 31st, a temporary emergency shelter operated for the past year by the Mi'kmaw Native Friendship Centre Society will cease operations at that location.

“The goal was to always maintain that shelter as an urban Indigenous shelter,” says society executive director Pam Glode-Desrochers, “and unfortunately over time, the urban indigenous population have been pushed out.”

The society opened the shelter in just a few weeks this past January, with the goal of helping homeless members of the Indigenous community.

But Glode-Desrochers says that purpose got lost as broader demand for the shelter increased. Earlier this year, she says the province asked the society to add 15 to the original 25 beds for non-Indigenous residents.

She says as a result, Indigenous residents started feeling unsafe, and other issues emerged.

“We have a lot of people who are self-identifying that unfortunately we know are not community members, and that’s disheartening,” says Glode-Desrochers.

“But I also recognize that people are in real need, I understand why people do it,” she adds, “but I can’t stand by and watch my own community get pushed out.”

She feels it’s a necessary move to focus on the society’s mandate, which includes establishing a permanent shelter with cultural supports and programming.

Diamond Bailey House was supposed to open by the time the emergency shelter lease ended, but the pandemic and construction supply shortages have delayed the project on College Street into next summer.

That project has received several million dollars in government funding at both the provincial and federal levels and is meant to provide ‘broadly accessible ceremonial programs.’

MNFC programs manager Cheyenne Labrador says the temporary emergency shelter was set up too quickly to put those programs in place properly.

“We have done a lot of learning over the past year, and I think we really need a moment to take a breath and reset so we can provide those supports.”

Glode-Desrochers says she’s working with the province to find new spaces for shelter residents – indigenous and non-indigenous.

In the meantime, the decision to close the doors on North Park Street by January has been met with vocal opposition, including from shelter staff.

Brent Cosgrove has been a case manager at the shelter since it opened.

He takes issue with Glode-Desrochers’ assertion that indigenous members have been ‘pushed out.’

“We’ve supported and continue to support plenty of urban Indigenous peoples,” he says, adding that he believes three-quarters of the current shelter clients are Indigenous.

While his contract was supposed to expire by the end of the year, he says staff always had the understanding that their work would continue into 2022 with the move to Diamond Bailey House.

He and other fellow contract employees think there’s another motive behind the closure.

In a media release, staff say the closure announcement came after they applied for unionization to the Nova Scotia Labour Board.

They plan to hold a certification vote to join the Service Employees International Union Local 2 sometime over this week.

“I would hope she would see the potential in how a unionized workforce could better support the urban indigenous population,” says Cosgrove.

He says staff and residents of the temporary shelter plan to hold a rally on Friday at 2029 North Park Street at noon in an effort to keep the shelter open at a time when he says residents have few alternatives.

Glode-Desrochers denies the unionization drive is related to the decision to close the shelter.

In the meantime, the matter has also become political, with the Liberal opposition's homelessness and poverty critic weighing in.

“The provincial government of the day needs to step up,” says MLA Brendan Maguire.

“Whether they use this facility or they open another, something has to be done, but what we're being told now is its being closed and that's it.”

When CTV News asked the province’s department of community services what is being done to find housing for those affected by the shelter’s closure, the department’s communications advisor would only provide a response by email.

“There is no disruption for shelter clients,” writes Lisa Jarrett. “We have assurances from the MNFC that all existing clients will continue to be supported without disruption.”

“The province approved $850,000 in funding to the Mi'kmaw Native Friendship Centre for emergency shelter placements until May 31st, 2022 at which time the new Diamond Bailey House will open and Indigenous clients will transition. “

But Glode-Desrochers tells CTV she’s not aware of that funding being available to keep the shelter on North Park Street in operation.

She says Indigenous clients from the shelter will be serviced out of the centre’s Gottingen Street location, while work is underway to relocate non-Indigenous clients elsewhere in the community.

“Let’s be honest, a shelter is a band aid solution for housing,” she says, “But my goal is not to displace anybody, my goal is to be providing the actual supports and programs for Indigenous community members.”