GAIL LETHBRIDGE: Hurricane Lee sheds light on N.S. housing crisis

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With yet another big storm bearing down on the region, we are battening down the hatches, taking in lawn furniture, stocking up on batteries and crossing our fingers that we aren’t in for another Fiona.

Storm Lee is due to hit the province today, probably as a post-tropical system with winds of 90 km/h, which is just shy of a Category 1 hurricane. Whatever we call this storm, the impacts will be widespread, given the size of the storm cone.

With trees still in full leaf, there will be damage to infrastructure. It’s not a matter of if the power goes out, but how long it will be down. Telecommunications will also take a hit, leaving people without the ability to communicate. There will also be property damage and flooding.

Trees and power lines that were knocked down by high winds from post-tropical storm Fiona are seen strewn about Norwood Street in Halifax on Sept. 27, 2022. - Ryan Taplin / File — Trees and power lines that were knocked down by high winds from post-tropical storm Fiona are seen strewn about Norwood Street in Halifax on Sept. 27, 2022. – Ryan Taplin / File

It’s all bringing back memories of Fiona which left some Nova Scotians with no power for weeks, cutting from refrigeration, lights and communication. We haven’t even fully recovered from that storm.

So consider the growing population of people who are living outside in tents. They live every day with no power or a roof over their head. Their permanent homes are what others consider lawn furniture or camping gear.

The province has set up temporary shelters for the storm, but when it passes they will be sent packing back to the parks with their tents.

This week we witnessed a desperate act by Halifax council to find more places for them to camp.

A city staff report suggested taking out two baseball diamonds on the Halifax Common to make room for another encampment. The plan was to give people who are unsheltered a place to live near support services located on Gottingen Street.

With public outcry from neighbours and users of the Common, council shut down that option pretty quickly. People didn’t like the lack of consultation.

They did approve more tent communities with temporary “housing” on leased private property, such as parking lots and land not being used.

The idea of the municipality looking for more tent locations on the eve of a hurricane tells the story of the deep social crises of unaffordability, drugs and mental health.

Tents housing the homeless are seen in Victoria Park in Halifax on Oct. 24, 2022. - Tim Krochak / File — Tents housing the homeless are seen in Victoria Park in Halifax on Oct. 24, 2022. – Tim Krochak / File

Halifax councillors are furious with the province for failing to act on the housing crisis. They are talking about shaming the province into pitching in and point to the province’s unanticipated surplus of $116 million as an opportunity to attack the housing crisis.

They remind the province that housing is a provincial responsibility that the city is backfilling with temporary measures.

Premier Tim Houston is pushing back on the outrage of Halifax council, telling them to slow down and look in the mirror. He says the city has been slow to approve affordable housing development and is pushing up construction fees which are contributing to the housing crises.

It will not escape the premier’s notice that the city is now investigating a proposal to build a $40-million professional soccer stadium in the middle of Halifax.

“The province has set up temporary shelters for the storm, but when it passes they will be sent packing back to the parks with their tents.”

This week the federal government waded into the crisis with the announcement of plans to reduce the cost of affordable housing by removing its portion of the GST on new construction. They will also pressure municipalities to speed up construction with the removal of exclusionary zones.

All of this comes off as a knee-jerk reaction at a time when homelessness and tent cities are becoming permanent fixtures in cities and towns around the country. It is the absence of affordable housing construction and policy over the past generation that has put us here.

What I find disheartening is the finger-pointing, blaming and the gamesmanship around this crisis. Homelessness has become a political football with parties and different levels of government snipping at each other when real human beings are left to live outside.

Fighting over who should pay for the problem is not going to solve anything.

With the coming storm, this reality is all the more stark.