Halifax-area hotel turned shelter costing province millions

A Dartmouth hotel that is being used as a shelter has seen over 100 people transition to permanent housing since it opened in 2023.

For the past two years, a former hotel near the Macdonald Bridge in Dartmouth, N.S., has served as a shelter, currently housing 173 people.

Eric Jonsson, manager of The Bridge, says many people are chronic cases who can’t or won’t live elsewhere.

“We try to support people who have been unhoused for a long time and also people that are barred or excluded or can’t really get into other shelters,” he says.

People get three meals a day, medical services on site and drug and alcohol addiction counselling. Some of them have been there for a year or longer.

“They have their own rooms with their own bathrooms and there are meals there so when my staff is offering a communal living situation that might not be the right choice for somebody to go to,” says Marie-France Leblanc, CEO of the North End Community Health Clinic.

“We’ve really tackled the issue of needing shelters and needing to get people off the street. We need to go to the next step now and tackle, ‘What does housing look like for people experiencing homelessness?’ for people that need to move on from shelters.”

Nova Scotia leases the former hotel from the owner and the deal carries a massive price tag.

The original lease in 2023 was for $10 million. Services offered cost another $4 million.

Extending the lease to the end of this year is $19 million.

Then province spent another $24 million to keep it open until 2030 for a total of nearly $57 million.

“We know that a shelter is a temporary solution,” says Suzanne Ley, executive director of Opportunities and Social Development. “They’re supporting people with more complex needs that may need a longer time before they’re able to integrate into community.”

Since opening, of the 400 people who have lived here, 107 have moved on to more permanent housing.

“I think the biggest success for me is people that have stayed here for a long time that haven’t been able to stay inside anywhere else before. People that we all probably recognize from walking downtown or from being just a member of the Halifax community. People that have been in shelters or tents for many years, they come in here and we’ve got a couple people here who’ve been here for over a year,” Jonsson says.

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