Hotel staff claim the rooms have long been booked by others
Halifax/Kjipuktuk. PADS Community Network and housing workers discovered this morning that an entire floor of a hotel that is currently used to shelter unhoused people will be evicted tomorrow morning. The Comfort Inn in Dartmouth says that the city has long known that these rooms were unavailable and booked by other clients, but the city did not warn anyone currently housed there.
“How can you get somebody’s hope up and then knock them down like this,” implored G. Malcolm Kay, one of the unhoused hotel guests impacted by this decision. “It just destroyed me to get this news.”
Malcolm was previously a resident of PADS People’s Park, and will now return to the park as the hotel room is no longer an option.
This move causes further destabilization and fear amongst unhoused people in this city, as even the intermediate solutions offered by the city are precarious.
“We expect that the number of residents at People’s Park will continue to expand because of the city’s continued negligence and mismanagement – which is edging on abuse – as an already vulnerable community is left to wonder how much longer they will be left to manage – without word or care,” declared Rachelle Sauve, the site coordinator at People’s Park. “This park exists in response to a crisis that the city created, and is expanding as the city continues to make this crisis worse.”
It is time for the city itself to come clean, apologize and be accountable to its promises to provide intermediary housing options for the city’s unhoused. The city needs to declare a moratorium on all police evictions of tenters across the city until it is prepared to provide intermediary housing, which has not been made available.
Nice little ” Tent City ” P.A.D.S. … This Homelessness and Education can do what ever you want but unless you all don’t stand up and ” Fight for what you Believe in ” than there’s nothing to Fight for , is there … Squat one Day and Squat Everyday if need be … Housing is not a Luxury but a Right … It’s a ” Human Rights Serious Issue ” Everyone has a Right to ” Low Cost Decent Affordable Housing ” More and more ” Low Income People and Tenants ” are being Evicted to make way for those who can afford the Province and Cities ” Spiralling Rents ” … One thing that P.A.D.S. has to think about is this : Without homes people’s ” Education – their Physical and Mental Health ” and that Future chances in Life all Suffer … Day after Day Families face the fear and the ” Uncertainty of Eviction and Homelessness ” … As rents continue to go up and ” Affordable Housing Options Diminish ” and levels of Homelessness are set to increase and in the end of it : OUR CHILDREN WHO WILL CONTINUE TO FEEL THE IMPACT OF LIFE WITHOUT A PERMANENT HOME … Just saying in my own opinion …?
With over 41,000 children living in Poverty at this very moment , in Nova Scotia … Well doesn’t that give the Citizens a kind of wake up call … ? Where you perfectly know that’s what the heart of the Street People are …? The heart of the struggles – surviving – thriving and being neglected day in and day out … I honestly think that being exposed to Homelessness ( type of Lifestyle ) makes it harder for the Street People to overcome all these Obstacles of theirs …! It kind of Saddens me … I am a serious Housing Activist and I care for the Homeless Street People Lives and well being … By the way , isn’t the word ” Altruism ” really just means : ” Helping Other People ” … ?