Halifax council to discuss homelessness MOUs, extending Dartmouth emergency shelter – Halifax | 24CA News
Halifax Regional Municipal councillors might be discussing this week whether or not to maneuver forward with negotiating Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) to handle homelessness and housing.
A workers report being introduced to council on Tuesday takes a take a look at how different municipalities have used MOUs to handle the housing disaster. Examples included Victoria, Vancouver, Guelph, Ont., and Surrey, B.C.
The report factors out that whereas MOUs are “generally, non-binding” and should not give the municipality any authorized recourse, they will “help to structure and strengthen partnerships.”
MOUs lay out in written kind features of collaboration: size of the partnership, desired targets, how you can consider efficiency and any dangers or monetary obligations.
The MOUs may cowl emergency shelter operations, housing development, or land growth. Typically, the MOUs would contain the municipality, the province, non-profits and private-sector builders.
“Given the complexity of the housing crisis, staff recommend that HRM not restrict itself to a bilateral (provincial-municipal) agreement. Multilateral, private-public MOUs should be explored,” the report says.
The report additional says that throughout the nation, “MOUs have helped to both attract and direct public-private resources to house the unhoused.”
In May 2022, whereas discussing a proposal for designated tent websites for folks experiencing homelessness, council directed the CAO to supply this workers report on negotiating an MOU with the province.
“The report should include defining the roles of each order of government and specific actions to support and prevent homelessness within the HRM,” the movement said.
According to the By Name List (BNL) from the Affordable Housing Association of Nova Scotia, there have been 874 actively homeless people in HRM as of March 14. The knowledge is predicated on self-identification on the time the shape was accomplished.
Last month, council endorsed a framework to handle homelessness, which workers say ought to function the “bedrock” for any MOUs which are negotiated.
The framework lists numerous initiatives, together with staffing an extra avenue navigator and constructing a full-time every day drop-in centre that will function year-round.
‘Housing issues don’t go away in the summertime months’
Meanwhile, Deputy Mayor Sam Austin has additionally submitted a movement asking council to approve a letter from the mayor to the province to ask that the emergency shelter in Dartmouth stay open past the winter months — or that alternate house be offered.
During the chilly climate, the province has funded the shelter at Christ Church Hall on Dundas Street in downtown Dartmouth, which has been operated by the non-profit group, 902 Man Up.
Read extra:
Halifax homelessness disaster: What governments are doing and why advocates say extra is required
Austin, councillor for Dartmouth Centre, factors out in his movement that the shelter has offered “badly needed space for people with few options.”
“The Province recently wrote Christ Church indicating they would terminate the lease for the space as of May 31. Unless the Province has an alternate plan that hasn’t been shared, when the shelter closes there will be no emergency shelter spaces in Dartmouth,” the movement states.
The movement goes on to say that the “old model” of scaling up shelter areas in chilly winter months doesn’t work as a result of “housing issues don’t go away in the summer months.”
Austin mentions that the answer to summer time homelessness “shouldn’t be an HRM park,” in reference to the municipality’s transfer final summer time that designated sure parks the place unhoused folks may camp.
“The Province should adopt an approach of only closing shelter spaces if the actual need has decreased, not based on outdated notions around seasonal need,” the movement concludes.
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