Saint John halfway house adds beds to meet reintegration demand

A Saint John halfway house is adding more beds to meet what a local non-profit calls a "severe" demand to help people who have served their prison sentences re-enter society. 

Margo Butler, the executive director of the John Howard Society of Saint John, which runs a house in the uptown — said halfway houses across the province are struggling to meet the needs of the population they serve.

She said this can mean people may remain institutionalized until they can be placed in a halfway house in their home community, sometimes for several months to a year. The other option is for the parolee to go to another province. 

"And most people want to come back to the community that they're from because that's where their family connections are, their friends are. Some come back as employment is waiting for them," she said.

City council recently lifted zoning restrictions on the number of beds permitted at the Carleton Street halfway house. That allows the building can move from 15 beds to a maximum of 21 beds. 

"So when we applied to the city to say we can support more in [the house], we would like to do that, because the need is great," Butler said.

Butler said taking an additional four to six people off the wait list will make a big difference.

The house provides coaching for parolees on things like opening a bank account, obtaining ID, budgeting, cooking and finding employment.

Butler said these supports help people transition to living on their own.

The space is for men who have been granted parole — typically after serving two-thirds of their sentences —  and who can be "accepted in a community," Butler said. 

Men living in the home have served time for a variety of offences, including property crimes and drug offences. Some have served life sentences and re-enter the community in old age.

Remaining institutionalized can be defeating

Butler said there is an extensive wait list of people ready to start their parole but who can't come back to their home city. Some, she said, choose to start their paroles in Newfoundland instead. Butler said others could be waiting six months to a year in an institution for a space to open up in their home town.

"It really is detrimental to people's well-being if they remain in the institution longer than they need to," she said.

"When people are approved for parole, they're quite excited. They've completed everything that the parole board and their sentence mandated them to do. So it's pretty defeating when you've done your time, you've done everything and you're waiting to finish."

Halfway houses are funded federally by Correctional Services Canada. The agency's spokesperson, Shelley Lawrence, said there are 102 bed spaces in New Brunswick.

"The number of beds occupied on any given day fluctuates based on a number of factors, such as the number of suspensions and transfers from within the community, releases from the institution, and offenders reaching their sentence expiry," Lawrence said in a statement to CBC News. 

The agency said  individuals diverting to other provinces because of unavailable services is not "currently an issue for New Brunswick", saying there are empty beds available. 

The agency couldn't provide information regarding wait lists for halfway house placement and length of time an individual may wait for placement because, the spokesperson said in an updated statement, CSC treats the Atlantic provinces as a single region. 

"It is not common to have offenders waiting for bed space in New Brunswick if they are flexible on their release destination within the province," the statement said..

Elizabeth Clark, executive director of a transition house for women impacted by the provincial justice system — run by Elizabeth Fry New Brunswick —- said John Howard's halfway house provides important services, but other gaps exist. 

She said the city needs subsidized housing for previously institutionalized people. 

"So people coming out of institutions and trying to get their life back together, there's a lot of skills that they maybe don't have, which is similar to populations who lived on the street for a long time," she said.

"There's a lot of skill building required. So supportive housing programs are crucial."