{"id":179338,"date":"2023-09-14T16:36:54","date_gmt":"2023-09-14T20:36:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=179338"},"modified":"2023-09-14T16:36:54","modified_gmt":"2023-09-14T20:36:54","slug":"halifax-councillors-vote-against-creating-new-tent-site-in-halifax-common","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/halifax-councillors-vote-against-creating-new-tent-site-in-halifax-common\/","title":{"rendered":"Halifax councillors vote against creating new tent site in Halifax Common"},"content":{"rendered":"

Halifax regional council voted Tuesday night against turning the Halifax Common into a new tent site for people experiencing homelessness.<\/span><\/p>\n

The homeless strategy report was prepared by Director of Housing and Homelessness Max Chauvin. The report discussed opening up the Common as a new tent site, to which 12 councillors voted against and four voted in favour.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The report cited Statistics Canada information on housing from the 2021 census. The census showed that 30,000 households in Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) are in a core housing need.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat means that they spend more than 30 per cent of their income on housing,\u201d Chauvin said.<\/span><\/p>\n

In March, the province announced that the <\/span>rent cap<\/span><\/a> will be increased to five per cent at the start of next year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA five per cent increase will put some people into homelessness,\u201d Chauvin said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Since 2018, the homelessness population in Halifax has risen from 18 people to 178, as of July 2023. Many of these people are living in tents in parks across the city.<\/span><\/p>\n

During Chauvin\u2019s presentation to council, he mentioned that parks in Halifax designated for around four tents now have up to 30, and suggested opening new tent sites to alleviate these areas.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Several councillors said this is something that if the Common opens up to allow tents, it could also become overcrowded.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure providing a designated site on the Common is going to be a great service to anyone,\u201d Coun. Shawn Cleary said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The designated area of the Common near North Park Street and Cogswell Street could fit up to 20 tents.<\/span><\/p>\n

Coun. Waye Mason asked if there would be staff there to ensure the number of tents doesn\u2019t exceed 20. To which Chauvin said, \u201cif the site is full, there does need to be another site before we can move people on.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Some other recommendations made in the report were: leasing private land for tents and shelters, creating more encampments on municipal properties such as parking lots and surplus land and asking the province to create immediate affordable housing in HRM.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe need more of a plan from the federal government than we have seen with the rapid housing initiative,\u201d Coun. Paul Russell said.<\/span><\/p>\n

In July, the Rapid Housing Initiative Funding was announced for just over $11 million in funding for HRM to help create a minimum of 36 units for vulnerable population groups.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Coun. Lisa Blackburn and Coun. Sam Austin also agreed that the province needs to do more to help with the homelessness situation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHow long have we been asking for help? Pleading with our provincial government for action on this,\u201d Austin said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Listen to the story below:<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Halifax regional council voted Tuesday night against turning the Halifax Common into a new tent site for people experiencing homelessness. The homeless strategy report was prepared by Director of Housing and Homelessness Max Chauvin. The report discussed opening up the Common as a new tent site, to which 12 councillors voted against and four voted…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":179564,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57,21655,225],"tags":[30280,29658,30279,29901,29654,30277,29902,30278,30276],"radio":[13058],"origine":[274,300,278],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179338"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179338"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":179837,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179338\/revisions\/179837"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179338"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=179338"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=179338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}