Parents hire security over concerns with Lower Sackville shelter

Tensions are escalating in Lower Sackville, N.S., due to the proximity of the Beacon House shelter and Pallet homes close to a local park and school, causing parents in the community to hire temporary security.

“We hired security to monitor the sidewalk here and monitor our skate park and our Met-field and make sure that if the kids are leaving at lunch time that they are safe,” says parent Jennifer Robar.

Robar, along with another parent whose kids attend Leslie Thomas Junior High School, deposited funds to a Safer Sackville Stakeholders group to hire security after incidents occurred involving children finding empty methadone bottles metres away from their school.

“My son and his friend stumbled across a methadone bottle that was empty and luckily I’ve had conversations with him about not touching anything they don’t know, but then he told me about another student whose curiosity got the best of him,” explained Robar.

She says the other student touched the bottle and brought it to the attention of a teacher who then washed his hands and face before throwing the bottle out and alerting Beacon House.

Robar says she has been communicating her concerns to the province and requested security for the area during school hours, however, she was informed by the province that it would not happen.

“We can’t control what people do when they’re off site, all we can do is have rules and regulations in place when they’re on site,” says Minister of Community Services Brendan Maguire. “These are humans, these are people that deserve a safe, dignified place over their head and that’s what we will continue to do.”

Robar says she wants the province to consider the safety of the children in the neighbourhood who often cross through the park to get to and from school.

“We’ve seen needles in the community,” she says. “The security we hired saw someone inject themselves seconds before getting on a bus and tossing it outside just before students left school.”

While Beacon House does have security on Pallet sites, Robar says they stay on the property and children and parents are finding drug paraphernalia off the property, close to schools and playgrounds.

“We had saw a few people using the swings and after they left there was a needle left there,” she says.

Dalhousie University social work professor Jeff Karabanow says he understands both concerns over safety, but also the importance of providing housing to people.

“There has to be much more collaboration between the pilot community and other communities to kind of figure out best practices so that everybody feels safe there,” he says.

However, Karabanow added the province needs to do more.

“The province should be at the table exploring different strategies. If security is one of the dynamics, it should be an expense I think that the province picks up. It shouldn’t come of communities to be creating their own sense of security,” he says.

He also believes other solutions could be looked at.

“It speaks to looking at much more scattered site kind of landscapes, so we’re not creating these particular communities that sit siloed, but they should be much better integrated in an existing environment,” he says.

Karabanow suggested other cities dealing with similar dynamics would have the service providers clean the area.

“We set up a shelter in a particular area and we would do morning sweeps to make sure everything was clean," he says. "So there are best practice approaches that can be done as well.”

CTV News reached out to Beacon House, but they declined an interview.

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