N.B. housing minister confirms recent deaths of people who were homeless in Saint John

New numbers show there are more people experiencing homelessness in Saint John, N.B.

New Brunswick’s housing minister has confirmed the recent deaths of people experiencing homelessness in Saint John.

David Hickey, the MLA for Saint John Harbour, confirmed the deaths when asked by the official opposition in the legislature on Thursday.

“I did know two of them,” said Hickey, when asked again by reporters about the deaths on Friday. “I think some of our community outreach organizations have confirmed there’s more like four in the last little while.”

Hickey did not offer information about the circumstances of the deaths, nor when or where they occurred.

“The status quo is not acceptable, this government knows that, and that’s why we’re responding with the speed we are,” said Hickey when faced with criticism from Progressive Conservative members, mentioning the provincial government’s homelessness task force announced in September.

Hickey said a comprehensive provincial strategy on homelessness, which would include $7.4 million in funding, would be released before the end of the year.

Interim Progressive Conservative Leader Glen Savoie said the government’s handling of homelessness over the last year had seen no improvement to the situation.

“These are preventable deaths,” said Savoie in the legislature. “Every single one of them represents a failure of our system.

“When you see that there are deaths that are happening, all they can talk about is how they have a task force in place and that they’re allocating money. I asked a very specific question: Saint John is asking for money to be able to help relocate people; how much have they spent? And there was no answer.”

At this week’s Saint John city council meeting, Coun. Barry Ogden spoke about recently attending three funerals for people who were homeless.

“I know that when I went to those three funerals last week, a lot of young people, a lot of families … there’s a lot of hurt going on in these communities,” said Ogden.

City councillors were presented with a staff report at the same meeting on Monday, which indicated there were 437 people experiencing homelessness in the city during October. The same report said 250 people were living with chronic homelessness for six months or longer in Saint John during the month of October.

The report also said 61 new people had become homeless in Saint John since August.

A ‘point-in-time’ homelessness count was scheduled across the country, including Saint John, on Nov. 19. Information from the count is expected to be made public in January.

Councillors were also provided with an update on the city’s Housing for All strategy along with its red zone encampment plan, which had a stated goal of removing all tents and temporary shelters by Nov. 17. While nine encampment sites have been vacated, 18 are still in place in designated red zone.

The staff report said a majority of people still living in encampments were “high acuity or have health and mobility challenges.”

“There’s an increase in the number of high acuity and complex needs that require provincial solutions, and this is a gap that the Housing for All strategy doesn’t address,” said Cara Coes, the city’s senior manager for community support services, when presenting the report.

Council rejected a recommendation to abandon timelines with the strategy for removing encampments in red zones.

“A goal without a date is just a dream,” said Coun. Garry Sullivan, who presented the motion to stick with the plan approved in September. “The accountability to this council of a plan that we instituted isn’t here if we just remove the dates.”

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