Saint John greenlights 2 areas for transitional housing for 54 people
First green zone will be operational in August, second in December
Saint John council has approved a plan for "green zones" to tackle the city's growing homeless population and reduce the number of encampments around the city.
The pilot project aims to bring 54 individual transitional housing units to two sites — one off Thorne Avenue in east Saint John and the other nearby on Egbert Street, a small side street off Thorne. Both are near the Atlantic Superstore and the Church of England Cemetery.
Council voted this week to designate the two areas "pilot sites." City staff, Mayor Donna Reardon and various organizations also presented the plan at a media event Wednesday.
"This strategy reflects our commitment to a people-centred, human-rights-based approach, ensuring that every resident has access to safe, supported and sustainable housing," Reardon said.
"The sites are city-owned properties providing legally sanctioned, safe transitional housing for individuals experiencing homelessness."
Saint John first announced green, yellow and red zones as a part of its Housing for All strategy in July 2024.
The 12 Neighbours charity will operate the green zones and run its "Neighbourly" project on the sites to "rapidly deploy" transitional housing, Cara Coes, the city's senior manager of community support services, told council this week.
The two green zones will each have two courtyards that will have individual units for at least 13 people each, she said. Every unit will have a bed, locking doors, heat, lights and internet.
Both green zones will always be staffed night and day and will have shared washroom, laundry, kitchen and multi-purpose facilities.
12 Neighbours also runs a tiny home community in Fredericton.
"Each of the units are also equipped with an Android tablet," said Marcel LeBrun, the organization's founder.
"That gives people access to services, but also entertainment and things like that … having communications and those things is very important."
LeBrun said people living in the units will be able to live there for free to start.
"We are in discussions between the province and the city about transitioning to moving to paying something because that's part of housing stability. So part of housing stability is you have to learn to pay rent."
Future residents will be chosen from the city's co-ordinated access system, run by a group of agencies that identifies where to place individuals according to need. The separate courtyards, Coes said, will also allow separation for different needs — such as a wet versus dry courtyard.
The plan is to open the Egbert Street site in August and the Thorne Avenue site in December.
In March, the Human Development Council said 276 chronically homeless people in the city. Last June that number was 159.
Reardon said the green zones are a result of funding from federal and provincial governments of $3.5 million announced earlier in the year.
Plans for other zones not final
In the Housing for All plan's early stages, green zones were areas that would allow encampments and have frontline staff, electricity, heat and garbage pickup.
The plan also includes yellow and red zones that haven't been finalized. Yellow zones, according to the plan, would allow encampments at certain times and red zones are "high risk areas" such as public parks, where encampments wouldn't be permitted.
The new green zones are near the overnight shelter on Rothesay Avenue. The roughly 60-bed shelter — which Coes said will now be a permanent overnight shelter — operated as an out-of-the-cold site during the winter.
The sites will also be close to an existing encampment near the rail line that crosses Thorne Avenue near the Superstore.
Coun. Gerry Lowe, whose ward includes the green zones, was the only councillor to vote against the staff recommendation on Tuesday night.
"I like the idea of the green zones," Lowe said.
"But the location bothers me as a councillor that has to deal with that area. The amount of break-ins there for the last year have been bad, and the garbage that's left behind."
Lowe said he wishes red zones had been announced first, to give people an idea of the areas where tents will be removed.
The city will hold a community information session on May 28 at 6 p.m. at Loch Lomond Villa.
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