'We're just at a standstill': Housing crisis causing backlog in shelters, transitional housing

Erin Austin wants to see more of the people she works with find permanent housing, but it's getting increasingly difficult. 

An outreach manager with Adsum for Women and Children in Halifax, which operates two emergency shelters and supportive housing in Halifax Regional Municipality, Austin said it's now taking six months to a year for her clients to secure permanent housing they can afford.

"That's a constant worry, because if the spaces in the shelters are full, then there is no space for new folks to come in," she said. "We're just at a standstill until those folks get moved on."

Many of the people Adsum works with earn minimum wage or receive income assistance, she said, and that's not enough to keep up "because of the increased cost of living, the increased cost of rent, the fact that there is not enough housing for the amount of people that are looking."

Organizations like Adsum that work with people who are unhoused or precariously housed in Halifax say the high cost and low availability of rentals is increasing demand for their services, and clogging up the temporary solutions devised to deal with a worsening crisis.

According to the latest rental market report from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Halifax saw the highest year-over-year spike in residential rent across the country between 2021 and 2022, with the average for a two-bedroom unit jumping 9.3 per cent. 

The vacancy rate in Halifax stayed around one per cent — the second-lowest in the country.

Long-term effects

Adsum is one of the operators of The Bridge, the province's newest and largest shelter, which will have 190 rooms in an old hotel space in Dartmouth. Many homeless people had already been staying at the hotel, in rooms rented by the government.

Austin worries about the detrimental effects of staying in a hotel or shelter long-term, but said there are also dangers for people who can't get in.

"There's more and more tents going up. There's more and more people who are ending up homeless because of the increased cost of living," Austin said. 

The Affordable Housing Association of Nova Scotia tracks the number of people experiencing homelessness in Halifax, with data from service providers including Metro Turning Point, the Salvation Army, Adsum, the YWCA and the Out of the Cold Shelter.

It says the number of people considered actively homeless in the municipality has risen from 690 in September 2022 to 953 as of June 13.

Of that total, 713 people identify as "chronically homeless," meaning they've been unhoused for at least six months or recurrently during the last six years.

Jenna Tucker, the transition team lead with the John Howard Society, oversees a team of people who help men exiting the criminal justice system. She said the current housing market can force people to choose between an unsafe situation, or living outside. 

"Sometimes people are compromising in situations where their risk for domestic violence could be greater, or their risk to commit further crimes could be greater," Tucker said. "Overall it's very challenging because ... there's just not enough resources."

The John Howard Society operates transitional, supportive housing in Pictou and Halifax, but Tucker said moving on to the next phase is where some people are "getting stuck." 

'There's just no availability'

In December 2021, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Halifax-Yarmouth created 20 emergency shelters for people experiencing homelessness. 

Initially, the goal for the shelters was to help get unhoused people through that winter. But as the housing crisis has dragged on, many of those people have been unable to leave, and the archdiocese is adding five more shelters.

"It is quite difficult to find the next step in transitional housing for some of my folks because there's just no availability," said Lindsay Misiner, the shelter co-ordinator. 

"A new apartment comes up maybe once every two months. Sometimes I get really lucky and a few come up. But there's also 30 other people who are trying to get the same apartment."

Misiner said she is "constantly" searching for apartment listings and calling and emailing landlords and property managers. She said one of the sticking points is a lack of affordable housing developments, whether they're owned by non-profit groups or private developers.

"I do know that there are some housing projects that are ...  coming from the ground up, starting to get rolling. But it's going to be years before they're actually ready to go for people."

Misiner said some people she works with are facing an "eight-year-long wait list" to get a spot in government-owned public housing. 

Government response

Krista Higdon, a spokesperson for the provincial Housing Department, said the wait-list time for public housing can vary based on a person's location and preference.

"Clients who broaden their options by selecting more than ten buildings or more than two or three communities within a district, for example, are likely to be placed more quickly," she wrote in an email. 

The average wait time is less than two years, Higdon said, and the wait list has been reduced by 30 per cent over the past year, from 6,625 to 4,790 households. 

A spokesperson for the Department of Community Services said it funds 77 housing support workers across the province, who help people find and remain in permanent housing. 

The department also provides funding for "service providers to offer trustee services that support the transition of individuals into permanent housing, as well as diversion funding that helps with the costs of new tenancy, like damage deposits, connecting power, small household items and food," Leanne Strathdee-Dowling wrote in an email. 

She also said 347 new supportive housing units were created in the past year, while this year's budget provides an additional $8.2 million to improve homelessness services and increase supportive housing options.

But Austin said with demand constantly outstripping capacity and funding, more help needs to come faster.

"Permanent housing, more affordable housing" is required, she said. "There's only so much that can be done to improve someone's well-being in a space that isn't their own."