A Pallet shelter village is coming soon to Clayton Park West.
But the province can’t release many details because the plan is not finalized. They still need to iron some things out with the service provider, according to Suzanne Ley, the executive director of income assistance and employment support with the Department of Community Services.
The location would be next the BMO Soccer Centre on Thomas Radall Drive, near the Canada Games Centre and Halifax West High School.
She hopes more information will be available later this week.
Ley says that her team has been working with staff at the Halifax Municipality on this for some time.
But there was no “nefarious” reason for not revealing this information to the public sooner. The department wanted to respect the privacy of the organization involved until they iron out the final details, she said.
And once the service provider is in place, then they would be the point of contact for the community. If something happens or if residents have a particular concern, community members could talk to the service provider, who “has a commitment to follow up.”
“As concerns come up, we are behind them to help mitigate those concerns, whether they need additional funding to put something in place, or more resources like security. Our commitment to our service providers is that we support them in that,” said Ley.
She said there was an issue a few months ago where some residents of a Pallet village were frequently smoking in a bus hut nearby.
People who used that bus stop explained what was happening, and in response, the department built a hut for smoking cigarettes “far enough away from community members that we were able to mitigate that concern,” she said.
By balancing the concerns of the community and the needs of the vulnerable people in the shelter, they take what Ley calls “the good neighbour approach.”
MLA questions lack of info
Liberal MLA Rafah DiCostanzo revealed that the shelters were coming in a social media post from Friday.
She said some fencing had gone up around a plot of land near the Canada Games Centre, off of Thomas Radall Drive.
She asked Community Services Minister Brendan Maguire what work was going on there, and he said they plan to set up more Pallet shelters or tiny homes, similar to the ones in Sackville, according to DiCostanzo’s post.
She posted a photo of some fencing outside of the BMO Soccer Centre, which is near the Mainland Commons Baseball Field, the Canada Games Centre and the Halifax West High School.
The Pallet shelters in Sackville offer 51 beds and are run by the Beacon House Shelter, with some initial opposition from people in the area. They’re part of the province’s solution to homelessness, and the province bought 200 of the shelters for more than $7 million dollars.
Two other Pallet locations recently opened, one in Kentville, with 20 units, and one on Atlantic Street in Dartmouth, with 41 shelters.
The shelters are a transitional housing option to help people who are homeless have a place to call their own until they can move on to affordable or market housing.
But DiCostanzo is unhappy that neither she nor two councillors for the area knew this was coming, and that many were concerned about the shelters being near a school and the Canada Games Centre.
“As far as I know there was no consultation or input from anyone in the community. Many are concerned about the location being close to schools,” she wrote online.
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