More than 7,000 people waiting for public housing in N.S., but agency says vacancy rate improving

The head of the agency responsible for overseeing and managing public housing in Nova Scotia told a legislature committee Wednesday it is doing all it can to free up units and create new ones quickly, although thousands of people remain on a waitlist for a place to live.

Brian Ward, executive director of the Nova Scotia Provincial Housing Agency, said dedicated teams are handling turnovers when there are vacancies among the roughly 11,000 units provincewide. Those teams are also finding places for new units for the 7,020 people waiting for public housing, half of them seniors.

That figure is a slight improvement over the 7,709 waitlisted applicants across Nova Scotia as of August 2023. Documents obtained by CBC News through access-to-information laws showed applicants spent, on average, just over two years on the list.

"We're getting better at the unit [turnover] and we're starting to decrease our vacancy rate," Ward told reporters Wednesday following his appearance before the public accounts committee. 

AG has been critical of province's efforts 

The Nova Scotia Provincial Housing Agency was created almost two years ago, replacing five regional housing authorities.

Those housing authorities were criticized in a June 2022 audit by the province's auditor general, who noted inadequate oversight and highlighted the fact more than 1,500 units were "underutilized" with people in apartments larger than they needed. 

Kim Adair's audit also highlighted the slow pace at which apartments were prepared to receive new tenants, revealing it took on average four months to turn over an apartment.

The agency said Wednesday there have been improvements here, with apartment turnaround time going from 178 days in December 2022 to 134 days in June 2024.

Between 100 and 120 people leave public housing every month, said Ward. He added there is a vacancy rate of about 2.6 per cent, or roughly 280 to 286 units.

Creating more apartments

Ward said the agency has been able to convert some empty office, commercial or storage space into apartments. He highlighted Greystone, a housing community in Spryfield, where a local policing office was turned into an apartment.

The province has promised an additional 272 public housing units over the next three years.

"Across the province we have small offices within our buildings, so we're looking at those and seeing if we need them," said Ward. "Can we turn it back into a single unit?"

The agency provided other examples of conversions in Halifax and Cape Breton, including:

• A vacant community church space in Uniacke Square in Halifax was converted to a six-bedroom unit and a bachelor apartment.
   
• A former office and storage space at the Vimy Arms apartment building in Halifax is being converted into two one-bedroom apartments and one two-bedroom apartment. They are expected to be ready for occupancy by July 2025.
   
• An office space in a two-storey home in Glace Bay is in the process of being converted into two three-bedroom units. The units will be ready for occupancy later this month.

NDP Leader Claudia Chender, who attended the meeting, called the work inadequate to meet the demand.

"This government crows about the fact that they're going to someday, in the next decade, create 200 and change units when we have a 7,000-person waitlist," said Chender.

"I think that just shows the scope of the need that we have and how slowly, if at all, it's being met."

Liberal MLA Braedon Clark echoed that sentiment.

"It's incredibly difficult and it's a sign of the scale of the problem," he said.