Province picks spot for St. Stephen temporary housing

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St. Stephen has found a location for a “temporary housing initiative” to get unhoused people out of the cold, the province announced Tuesday.

Phase one of the initiative will be located at 24 Happy Valley Rd., south of Highway 1, and is expected to be operational by late February, the release said. The details of site preparation and delivery of trailers for the facility “will be finalized in the coming weeks” and will involve discussion with the site’s neighbours, according to the release.

“The community gathered together and acted to find a solution that will address the immediate concerns and perhaps even expand to include longer-term housing, which is always our goal,” Social Development Minister Jill Green is quoted as saying in the release. She thanked the Municipal District of St. Stephen and the warming centre working group for their work on the project.

Mayor Allan MacEachern said that this is the province’s project, and that representatives met with council last Thursday to discuss the plan. He said there will be another meeting between the province and nearby residents this Thursday to explain it.

“They have looked at all the properties available to house a temporary shelter, they came to a piece of property, and now it’s time (for the province) to talk to the citizens in that area,” he said. “We’ll see where it goes after there, give them a chance to share their concerns and their opinions.”

The location is the same one proposed by the warming centre working group in October, MacEachern confirmed.

In December, Green said the province had encountered “NIMBYism” in terms of opposition from neighbours at proposed sites, and then later that this specific site wasn’t suitable due to concerns over the fact the land had been expropriated. The land, assessed at a value of $20,000, is categorized as “vacant land,” part of the nearby highway, according to Service New Brunswick.

When asked what changed between December and now, and what the longer-term solution looks like, department spokesperson Rebecca Howland said that the purpose of the release was to announce the location, and that “more details would be shared in the coming weeks.”

When asked about the timeline of late February, MacEachern said it’s been “delayed quite a while.”

“This was supposed to be done in three weeks … and that’s been six or seven weeks ago. Now it’s still three weeks out,” he said, noting that the end of winter will come eventually.

Andrea McCaffrey, a nearby resident and business owner, said she’s a part of a group of 16 neighbours opposed to the project in that location. McCaffrey said she’s concerned about the shelter causing safety issues, with the site at the end of a residential street, nearby businesses and St. Stephen High School a short walk away.

“Not one person on our committee is opposed to helping homeless people that are in need,” she said. “What we’re opposed to is the criminal aspect and the drug aspect that comes with this type of community.”

She said that residents only started hearing about the possibility of the shelter opening near their homes a week and a half ago, and they were never formally informed until a letter from the town inviting them to the meeting with the province arrived Tuesday, after the province had announced the location.

“The thing that got us the most riled up is the secrets and not being forthcoming,” she said, saying there hasn’t been transparency about how the location was chosen.

On Thursday, she wants to know if there’s another option, suggesting a town-owned location near the Hayman Avenue highway overpass. Despite the description of the facility as “temporary,” she questioned how much work the province would put into a facility if they weren’t going to stay there.

“It’s too close to the high school, flat and simple,” said McCaffrey, who said she has grandkids at the school and “it sickens me.”

An emergency out-of-the-cold centre operated by Neighbourhood Works in St. Stephen opened last winter on King Street on Dec. 13, 2022, and ran until April, but the non-profit’s executive director Jim Stuart said in September the rented space would not work for a second year.

While talks on a new location with the community-led warming centre working group continued through the end of November, when a man died of a heart attack after being found in distress in a local park, St. Stephen council declared a state of local emergency Dec. 4. It was voided by the province after Public Safety Minister Kris Austin called it “frivolous.”

Green told the legislature Dec. 7 that the community had come up with an “immediate” solution, a medium-term solution and a long-term solution to the crisis. The next day, Neighbourhood Works announced the first of those: a 24/7 drop-in centre that could not offer sleeping accommodations, at its regular location on Union Street.

MacEachern said that the availability of the drop-in centre is “definitely a huge improvement,” but there are still encampments in the town with accompanying risks.

“We do need to get a handle on that, but until there’s a place available, we really can’t do much about it,” he said.

A request for comment from Stuart, also the chair of the warming centre working group, was not returned by press time.

McCaffrey said the response to homelessness in the community needs to include mental health and drug rehab services to help tackle some of the issues.

“We don’t have it, either there’s not enough or they’re so overwhelmed,” she said. “Why just give them stuff when you don’t have the means to help them?” she said.

When asked about what should have been done in December, when the current location was not on the table, she noted that the process to find a location had begun in August, and that decision-makers have “dragged their feet.”

MacEachern has in the past said homelessness doesn’t just affect “drug users that mess up their life,” referring to it as a “ladder” all citizens of the community are on.

“Whatever step we’re on, some of us are successful and some of us are hanging on the very last step,” he said. “We’ve all been knocked down a few rungs on the ladder this past year.”

He said while the shelter will get people out of the cold, the response is “reactive,” and that without addressing the root causes of homelessness, here and around the country, the problem will continue to grow.

“We’re only reacting to the situation that’s before us today,” he said. “It’s going to get people out of the cold, and that can get them help once you get them there … but we still need to figure out why they got where they are and stop reacting.”

He noted that the city of Edmonton was considering a state of emergency in response to homelessness, which they voted to do Tuesday night.

“I know their feelings and I know the situations they’re in. It’s not easy, and it’s getting out of control,” he said.

– with files from Barbara Simpson