Where is Nova Scotia’s homelessness prevention strategy?

The Nova Scotia government won’t say when it will deliver on its promise to create a plan to protect people from homelessness, as some advocates argue the province’s current approach is more reactive than preventative. 

When the province released its five-year housing plan in 2023, it included a line that stated it would develop its “first ever homelessness prevention strategy.”

“I interpreted that as an acknowledgement that the province recognized there were systems in place that were preventing people from staying securely housed and it needed to develop something comprehensive in order to prevent people from falling into homelessness,” said Catherine Leviten-Reid, professor of community economic development at Cape Breton University. 

A strategy, which several other provinces have, would create a holistic plan for addressing the various complex factors that cause homelessness, Reid said. She said it would set clear goals and create accountability for the province.

A spokesperson for the Nova Scotia government said there’s no timeline for developing the strategy but the province allocated $165 million in the latest budget to help people experiencing or at risk of homelessness.

But Reid said without a plan, the province is taking a piecemeal approach to dealing with a complicated problem.

“If we don’t have a target, we don’t really know where we’re going. We don’t know how to budget appropriately for it,” she said.

Province playing ‘catch-up’

One of the major reasons the province is in its current situation is because of decades of inadequate funding, said Jeff Karabanow, professor of social work at Dalhousie University.

“Nova Scotia really lagged behind in any type of investment in terms of affordable housing, social housing, let alone supportive housing over the last four or five decades. So, really it’s catch-up now,” he said.

The province is investing more funding into support services and building more affordable housing, but not in a way that it’s helping the most vulnerable people, Karabanow said.

The province needs to continue to increase its supportive housing stock, make it easier for people to access rent supplements, and add more housing support workers, he said.

Karabanow said the lack of supportive housing is going to lead to many tent encampments forming again despite efforts to shut them down.

Shelters are necessary to support people experiencing homelessness but are relied on too much as part of the province’s response, he said.

“We’ve invested way too much in the kind of ‘emergency crisis arena’ and very little in terms of prevention,” Karabanow said.

‘Significant progress’ being made

Provincial staff believe the current approach to homelessness is making a difference.

“We are seeing significant progress across the province,” said Jaime Smith, executive director of supportive housing and homelessness for the Department of Opportunities and Social Development.

In Halifax, for example, Smith said there are fewer than 50 people living in tent encampments this month, down from 200 people a few years ago.

They’re seeing the most success in preventing homelessness by providing funding to organizations that support people who are at risk of losing their homes, she said.

The province recently increased that funding to $2.4 million from $1 million, she said.

Smith said there are more than 1,212 supportive housing units online with more in development. The province’s goal is to eventually have 1,586 in operation.

The province does not have specific targets for reducing the number of people experiencing homelessness in Nova Scotia, she said, but they’re consulting stakeholders to determine what that number may look like.

“We are working together with our partners to ensure that homelessness is rare, brief and non- recurring for folks in the province,” Smith said. 

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