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The operator of a shelter in Bridgewater, N.S., is optimistic its new facility will be a benefit to users as well as the wider community after a local drop-in centre closed due to public backlash.
The province announced last week it’s giving $2.2 million to the South Shore Open Doors Association to operate The Landing, a 23-bed emergency shelter with expanded services.
The association will move from its current shelter location at St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church into a new space on a bigger property.
“We are very proud of this location for our shelter,” Josie Rudderham, the association’s executive director, said in an interview.
The Landing will be outside of the downtown core in a quieter part of town compared to the current shelter and the now-shuttered Cedar Place drop-in centre, which was operated by the John Howard Society.
The Landing is located in a wooded area with a large backyard space for users to be able to spend time outside away from the view of the public, Rudderham said.
Additional space will also allow the shelter to provide seven transitional housing units.
“What this creates is a funnel to permanent housing for people,” Rudderham said.
Downtown ‘very scary’ with drop-in centre activity
Cedar Place closed in March following community complaints and criticism by the town’s mayor.
The centre offered clients shower and laundry facilities, hot meals, addiction support and help finding employment.
However, police say the drop-in centre was connected to open drug use and nuisances in a nearby park, a drowning last summer and a significant spike in overnight lockups.
“Just very scary for a lot of the local residents, the disorder that was here, and it was taking up basically all of our day to be down here,” said Deputy Chief Danny MacPhee.
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Cedar Place didn’t seem interested in working with police to find solutions and was never properly set up to support people struggling with addiction, MacPhee said.
“That, I think, led to most of their problems,” he said.
The John Howard Society did not respond to a request for comment.
MacPhee said a shelter is needed for the Bridgewater area and he was pleased to learn the South Shore Open Doors Association would be operating the new facility because it has a proven track record.
‘If it wasn’t for the shelter, I don’t know where I’d be’
Bridgewater Mayor Dave Mitchell said he expects the shelter operators to be more accountable than the group running the drop-in centre.
Individuals who use the shelter services have to follow strict rules that if broken can lead to them being removed from the shelter for anywhere between 24 hours to a year, according to staff.
Staff say it’s important to enforce the rules but also to treat those coming into the shelter as human beings.
“We see anywhere between 15 to 30 people in the run of a day and not one single individual has the exact same story,” said Krista Miller, shelter manager.
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Miller said her own lived experience with homelessness and addiction has helped her build a rapport with the people coming into the shelter. She said the biggest misconception about people experiencing homelessness is that they’re all the same.
Thomas Smith, 38, became homeless after his wife died following years of battling an illness that drained them financially.
He stayed at the association’s shelter for roughly six months while trying to get back on his feet and is now volunteering his time helping renovate the new space.
“If it wasn’t for the shelter, I don’t know where I’d be. If I’d even be alive. So anything I can do to help somebody else who might be in my similar situation, I’m willing to do it.”
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