A new convalescent care unit is taking shape on Waterloo Street in Saint John, N.B. The project has been in the works since 2022, and is being done so in partnership with Outflow Ministry, Horizon Health Network, the St. Joseph’s Hospital Foundation, Saint John Regional Hospital Foundation and Canada East Spine Centre. As the project enters its final stages, the Coverdale Centre for Women has joined to be a part of the team. The goal of the facility is to allow for a smoother transition for patients leaving the hospital while still having a place they can receive care as they continue to recover. The facility will be geared at the city’s homeless population who do not have a place to go following a hospital stay but still require some care. According to Horizon, from 2020 to 2023, a total of 50 homeless patients accounted for 885 ER hospital visits, 205 acute admissions, 64 readmissions, adding up to a total of over 6,000 days in the hospital. It’s an average of 127 days per visit, but officials say the opening of the convalescent bed facility will slash that time spent in hospital to just 22 days. The project is starting off with six individual units that will support roughly 12 to 18 people a year to start, with plans to add more units over time. It is not a permanent housing option. The plan is for people to stay on a short-term basis, up to six months, before transitioning to a planned permanent housing option, or a bed at a local shelter if needed. “A big source of the increase in our homelessness numbers over the last couple of years has been inflow into the system,” says Outflow’s director of shelter and housing, Ben Appleby. “These are people being discharged from other big systems, like health or justice, that will end up in homelessness. They have no place to go.” Appleby says, from that point, many people find themselves at a shelter, but people cannot get the proper care they need after a stay in hospital. “We really can’t take care of them at the shelter,” Appleby continues. “We’re not trained to do that, and so to have a project where they can directly go from the hospital to their own apartment, to their own unit, further heal, further get stable, and have a health team that follows them and supports them.” Chronic homelessness has doubled in Saint John in the last few years, according to Appleby. He says the number of people seeking space at the Outflow shelter rose drastically compared to years past during the warmer months. He says projects like the convalescent care bed facility, as well as a number of other builds taking shape around the city, are exciting to see and he is hopeful they will make some positive change as it relates to the city’s homelessness crisis. Erin Bigney, the director of research at Canada East Spine Centre, says there is no facility comparable to the soon-to-be-opened location on Waterloo Street. She believes it will make a big difference to those needing a place to continue their recovery following a hospital stay. “Anyone who’s ever been in the hospital, you know when you leave there’s an expectation of continued healing at home,” Bigney points out. “But if you have no home to go to, how can we do that? So, I think this will be imperative in creating a healthier environment for everyone.” Not only does the project hope to benefit those who need the beds, it will also hopefully free up beds in hospital for those needing care. “We often in our roles think about barriers to health care,” says Caleb Hunter, vice-chair of the St. Joseph’s Hospital Foundation. “One of them that you don’t often think about is you need a place to recover once you’ve had your care. So, when it was brought to our attention that there’s a way that we could lend support to helping people in their recovery journey after they’ve received treatment, that was very important to us.” The plan is to have the beds ready for the first tenants to move into within the first few months of 2026. For more New Brunswick news, visit our dedicated provincial page.
