A stack of emails dating back to June describe how city officials made a “conscious decision” not to inform service providers of the city’s decision to orchestrate evictions of police-led camps from four sites in Halifax.
Global News obtained an email thread through the Freedom of Information Act detailing the planning and consequences of the August 18 evictions.
The growing number of homeless people living in city parks prompted CAO Jacques Dube to email its communications leader on July 30.
“There is an elaborate tent for 10 people that has just been installed in the old library. That and the other tents will also have to disappear the week of August 9 once we clear the Peace and Friendship Park, ”Dube wrote to Paul Johnston, HRM managing director of government relations and external affairs.
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It ended up being shortly after dawn on Aug. 18, when dozens of police officers descended on camps across Halifax.
The Halifax Regional Police and the Halifax Regional Municipality stated that health and safety concerns were the catalysts for the moves.
The municipality had posted several eviction notices with eviction dates on tents and wooden shelters in the weeks leading up to the official withdrawal date.
However, the city said the deadlines they had previously imposed passed without any action.
The message from city officials before and during the evictions, and the protests against them, was that housing options had been offered to the occupants.
“It is up to them to decide whether or not they will accept them, but as a city and as a province, we have made sure that those options are available,” Halifax Mayor Mike Savage said in an August interview. 18.
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That message was in stark contrast to what housing support workers declared when they came to help displaced occupants find resources.
“We could have coordinated this much more differently, much more delicately, and things could have played out in a way that I think would be … as safe as possible,” said Rylee Booroff, Adsum social worker for women and children. . in an interview on August 19.
Booroff went on to state that while he acknowledges that camping in public spaces is not sustainable or ideal, homeless people had no other options.
“If the government is not going to offer them adequate, safe and affordable housing, what other option do we have but to be out on government land?” she said.
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On August 19, Savage’s chief of staff emailed Dube with his concerns after a conversation he had with a housing service provider.
“They were of the opinion that while hotel rooms may have been offered at some point, many of the people in tents and sleeping structures have not been able to be successfully housed, even as a bridging solution, in hotels,” wrote Shaune MacKinlay.
He said several community agencies opposed HRM’s decision to keep the eviction confidential.
“The service providers could have come up with other alternatives if they knew HRM was going to move into the tents yesterday. Instead Adsum, Out of the Cold, Eric the street boater (who was on vacation), North End Clinic have taken positions against the municipality, ”he wrote.
The lack of communication was a ‘conscious decision’
Dube responded by stating that “we made a conscious decision not to wire our operation to these agencies given the serious risks of doing so.”
He wrote that police and city workers evacuated three sites without any problem, but “if we had telegraphed them, the scene we saw in the library would be multiplied by four instead of one.”
Dube ended his response by saying: “There was no possibility that we would put our operation and our staff at risk by doing what they suggest, that is, informing them in advance.”
On August 21, Dube sent an email to his team saying: “I am under a lot of pressure to find a place of temporary shelter with the possibility of the weather getting worse early in the week.”
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He then sent an email to HRM’s director of corporate real estate asking if a part of the Red Cross building could be used as an emergency shelter space.
On August 24, she emailed Tracey Taweel, the provincial deputy minister for community services, outlining a list of suggested locations for temporary emergency housing sites.
He described the Gray Arena at Dartmouth as a “long shot, but in the mix for HRM to consider it as we own it.”
The sand ended up becoming a temporary shelter.
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He also suggested that the parking lots at Centennial Pool and the Alderney Landing be used as “temporary trailer sites assuming wrap-around services.”
The regional council unanimously approved funding for emergency housing measures following public outrage over the police-led evictions.
The city has selected two modular unit sites in Halifax and Dartmouth. The one in Dartmouth is scheduled to be completed on December 20 and the one in Halifax is scheduled to be completed in late January.
About 30 people were staying at the Gray Arena at the end of November and around 20 were staying in tents at Meagher Park, also known as People’s Park.
There are more than 400 people at HRM struggling with homelessness, according to the Nova Scotia Affordable Housing Association.
See the documents obtained by Global News below:
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Reference-globalnews.ca