I gave the following members statement in the Nova Scotia Legislature on March 20 to draw attention to the high number of addiction applications in Dartmouth North: Madame Speaker, on February 27th I co-hosted a tenants’ rights information session with Dalhousie Legal Aid and ACORN at the Dartmouth North Public Library. This was our second well-attended tenants’ rights event since the Summer of 2023. At the event, Dalhousie Legal Aid community legal worker Mark Culligan presented some shocking but not surprising stats about eviction applications in Dartmouth North. After FOIPOPing landlord eviction applications between 2018 and 2021, Dal Legal Aid sorted them by postal code. The B3A region, Dartmouth North, consistently had more eviction applications than any other. In 2018, B3A applications made up approximately 12 per cent of all eviction applications; in 2019, 16 per cent; in 2020, 17 per cent; and in 2021, 12.5 per cent. The next-highest percentages range from 5 to 7 per cent. Unfortunately, there’s no way to tell how many of the evictions went through. In my office, we help many tenants fight unjust evictions, as do Nova Scotia and Dalhousie Legal Aids. These numbers only confirm that this Legislature must do more to protect people in Dartmouth North and across the province from unjust evictions.
Susan Leblanc asks minister why rent supplements keep being restricted
SUSAN LEBLANC: My question is for the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. Last week, after changing the rent supplement program to no longer allow a statutory declaration in place of a lease, the minister told reporters that “it’s got to be quite rare that someone doesn’t have a lease.” I can table that. In fact, Speaker, it is not. For example, data from the CBRM shows that 6 per cent of rental agreements don’t have lease agreements and 28 per cent don’t have leases in rooming houses. I can table that. Given this information, will the minister reverse this policy change and allow statutory declarations in place of leases?
HON. JOHN LOHR: What in fact has happened is that before we made our change it was just routine. There was the option of one -provide a lease or provide a statutory declaration. We’ve changed the policy so that we require a lease but if there is not a lease available, we will accept a statutory declaration, if there are other corroborating documents along with that. We are not slamming the door on that, but we’re saying it’s not just a routine (a) or (b), one or the other. There needs to be more corroborating information with that statutory declaration.
SUSAN LEBLANC: This is new news and has not been shared, I think, with constituency offices or the public. This change that I just talked about comes on the heels of a slew of changes to the program that will make it harder for people to qualify but the government is being opaque about the details of the changes. The minister last week said that maybe a power bill could be used in place of a lease. Today he is saying a statutory declaration with corroborating documents. My office wasn’t given any of thisinformation or options. Nova Scotia Legal Aid staff lawyer Nora MacIntosh was given a $900 fee estimate when she simply tried to access the policies the department uses for the rent supplement program. I can table that. My question to the minister is: Why is the government so secretive about how to access this already restrictive program?
JOHN LOHR: What I can say is that we have one of the most successful rent supplement programs in the country. I’ve said this before in the House: When I meet with my other provincial counterparts, one of the questions they often ask federal ministers is, Can we use that money for something else? They’re not fully subscribed with their rent supplement program. We’re more than fully subscribed: We’re four times over. We’ve got a $52 million program -of which approximately $42 million is provincial money -in what was meant to be a cost-share program. I have raised that issue with the federal Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities. We need the feds to stepup more than that. That’s clear. We’re working hard on this program. We’re proud of the program we have.
Susan Leblanc asks minister to guarantee a roof for everyone sleeping outside
SUSAN LEBLANC: My question is for the Minister of Community Services. Last night, temperatures dipped to zero degrees, and there is snow forecast in many parts of the province this week. We don’t know where a Winter shelter will be in HRM, but we do know that it will only be 50 beds, not nearly enough to meet the needs of the hundreds of people facing Winter outdoors.Living outside in the Winter can be deadly. Why hasn’t this government put forward a plan to house every person in HRM this Winter? THE SPEAKER: The honourable Minister for Community Services.
HON. TREVOR BOUDREAU: Thank you to the member for the question. We recognize the urgency of temperatures dropping and homelessness here in the province certainly here in HRM, but also across the province. Absolutely, we are working hard with our partners, with HRM, to secure a location for this shelter. I also will take the opportunity to talk about the Pallet shelters that will be coming, 200 of them for across the province: 100 of them for here in HRM, as well as 100 more for the rest of Nova Scotia. We know the urgency, we sense it. We’re continuing to work with our partners, we know there’s more to do, and we’ll continue to do what we can.
SUSAN LEBLANC: Let’s do the math here. We’ve got 50 beds in a shelter. We’ve got 100 Pallet shelters somewhere else. Since this government was elected two years ago, the number of chronically homeless people in HRM alone has more than doubled as a result of its housing policies. There are now more than 1,000 people actively homeless in HRM, many of them in Dartmouth. The minister is referencing a number of things: sheds, tiny homes, shelters. They do not add up to a warm place indoors for every single person who needs one. When will the minister guarantee a roof for every person living outside this winter in Nova Scotia?
TREVOR BOUDREAU: We recognize that everyone deserves a safe place to live. Over the past two years, this government has made significant investments in supporting people who are experiencing homelessness. I think of a couple of innovative projects, including The Bridge, that has been quite successful, and The Overlook. Again, we have talked about the Palletshelters as well as the tiny homes. Just for some perspective: Over the last two years, 417 new supportive housing units have been created by this government. We know there’s more to do -we do know there’s more to do, and we’ll continue to do what we can to support our most vulnerable. THE SPEAKER: The honourable member for Halifax Atlantic.
Susan Leblanc Asks Housing Minister About Changes to Rent Supplement
This is my entire exchange with the Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs regarding one of the many changes that his government has made to the rent supplement that is making the program less and less accessible to Nova Scotians.
SUSAN LEBLANC: My question is for the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.
Recently, when attempting to help a Nova Scotian get a rent supplement, my office learned that the program will no longer accept statutory declarations in place of a lease. In my community, and in many others across the province, there are countless reasons why someone might not have a lease, and it can be a lifeline to be able to get a statutory declaration in place of one. This change will mean that people could lose their homes. My question to the minister is: Why is the government so insistent on making it harder to find and keep a place to live?
HON. JOHN LOHR: I can say that we are in the process of tightening up some of our procedures, making them more in line with federal government procedures when dealing with programs that we put out. The reality is that we had people apply for rent supplements without a lease and then never end up renting. We had to tighten that whole process up. We recognize that it does make it a little bit harder, but certainly they are pre-approved for the rent supplement. They simply need to rent the apartment before we provide the money.
SUSAN LEBLANC: Speaker, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. It is impossible formany people to have a lease. Some people have rented for years and years and years and their lease is long gone. A statutory declaration was what they used -a legal document -to replace the lease. Now those are not being accepted. Our office was told: Due to policy changes, we are no longer accepting confirmation of occupancy forms or statutory declarations in lieu of leases. A caseworker will reach out to the client and let them know that they will need a full lease going forward. I will table that email. This comes on the heels of the supplement program’s eligibility being slashed from 30 per cent of a person’s income being spent on rent to 50 per cent before they qualify. This is very, very bad for many people. Even fewer people will qualify for rent supplements because of these changes. Will the minister reverse this very bad decision?
JOHN LOHR: The reality is we have one of the most robust and strongest rent supp programs in the country. I’ve said it before in the House: When I go to federal-provincial-territorial meetings, the other provinces are saying, We are not spending our Canada rent supp money, can we spend it on something else? We’re in the opposite position. We’re far exceeding the federal contribution, and we will continue to do that. We now have almost 8,000 people on rent supps, and we continue to invest further in rent supps, and recognize their importance in our province.
Susan Leblanc asks why a government shelter has empty rooms in a housing crisis
SUSAN LEBLANC: My question is for the Minister of Health and Wellness. Last week, it was reported that three-quarters of the rooms on the health care floor of The Bridge shelter are sitting vacant. Meanwhile there are hundreds of people experiencing chronic homelessness in Halifax, many of them with serious health issues. We know there are staffing issues at The Bridge and across the whole health care system, but how is it possible that this government is allowing shelter beds to sit empty in the middle of a housing crisis?
HON MICHELLE THOMPSON: We are in a partnership with the Department of Community Services with The Bridge to support individuals experiencing homelessness and who may need health care. Our portion of The Bridge is to look at those folks who need a space to get community-based health care. We look at the ability to prescribe periods of time where people can be sheltered to get that care and make sure it’s safe for both the individual receiving care, as well as the person who is delivering care. We continue towork with our partners in HRM to make sure that those spots for people requiring health care at The Bridge are used appropriately.
SUSAN LEBLANC: That sounds excellent. That sounds great. That’s exactly what we thought that that part of The Bridge shelter was for, and yet three-quarters of it is sitting empty. Meanwhile, there are people on the streets with severe health problems -people who are being released from emergency departments out into homelessness again, instead of to that area. A spokesperson from the Nova Scotia Health Authority stated that on any given day, there are multiple homeless community members who are identified as people who would benefit from intake on this floor. I can table that. Despite this fact, there are already more names on the floor’s wait-list than there are rooms. People awaiting surgery, people using wheelchairs are living rough in this province. How does the minister plan for all these people to be safely and appropriately housed before Winter?
MICHELLE THOMPSON:As I said, we work across departments to find solutions for individuals based on their circumstances. The Bridge is used for people who require short-term care in community, who are experiencing homelessness. Unfortunately, it is not a long-term housing situation for them, but we do work with our allied health care professionals, such as social workers and other individuals in the health care system, to support transition to community for those who need additional support.
Susan Leblanc Asks Housing Minister about Keeping Ocean Breeze Affordable
On the first day of the Nova Scotia Legislature I asked Housing Minister John Lohr how it is possible that his government didn’t reach out to the new developers of Ocean Breeze - traditionally affordable housing to over 1, 000 people - to ensure that it stayed affordable and people did not become homeless?
Full exchange:
SUSAN LEBLANC: Madame Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. Earlier this Summer, the first eviction notices were distributed to tenants of Ocean Breeze, a traditionally affordable housing complex in Dartmouth North that is home to over 1,000 residents. You would think that the sale of such a significant piece of real estate would be of interest to a government that wants to protect affordable housing, but FOIPOP shows no records of correspondence between the department and the new owner. I can table that. In the midst of an affordable housing crisis, how is it possible that the minister didn’t even reach out to the new developer to make sure that Ocean Breeze residents don’t become homeless during this redevelopment?
HON. JOHN LOHR: Madame Speaker, I will say to the member that we have a public-facing part of our department, and our senior staff interact with many different entities -not only developers, but not-for-profits, community housing groups, many different groups, but the way this works is they approach us. If we didn’t interact with them, they didn’t approach us. That’s the reality. We don’t go out and approach groups. They come in and they approach us. That’s how we do it, and we react to that. They come to us looking for information on programs or whatever. This is how this takes place. If we have no record of having communication with them, they didn’t ask for communication. All of our information is readily available online, how to connect with us.
SUSAN LEBLANC: With all due respect, Speaker, a government that is all about action on housing seems to have a strange way of approaching that action when they’re waiting for people to come to us -sitting back and waiting. The developer has been clear that it is open to working with this government to try to maintain affordable housing at Ocean Breeze. After the government didn’t act on an opportunity to purchase the site, we were hopeful that the government would step in to make sure that the housing remains affordable, but FOIPOP documents also show that no funding agreements between the government and the new owners of Ocean Breeze exist. Will the minister make a clear commitment that there will be no net loss of affordable housing due to the redevelopment of Ocean Breeze?
JOHN LOHR: Again, I will say that this is a private development. We will interact if we are asked to interact. I can tell you that we are spending an unprecedented amount of money to preserve affordable housing. One of the examples I will give you is CHAP, which has gotten national recognition, where we have a Community Housing Acquisition Program to enable not-for-profits to purchase. That has preserved and saved hundreds and hundreds of units. We continue to work in this space. We’ve put almost $300 million into housing this year. We will continue to do that. We will continue to build up community housing and not-for-profit housing, which is something that the Affordable Housing Commission report identified as very weak in Nova Scotia. As I’ve said, we’re continuing to do an unprecedented step -a historic step of building public housing units in Nova Scotia. As I’ve said, we’re continuing to do an unprecedented step, a historic step, of building public housing units in Nova Scotia.
Housing Crisis in Dartmouth North - Speech in Nova Scotia Legislature
I’d like to spend a few minutes talking about housing in Dartmouth North. As we go into Supply debate on this budget, I want to talk a little about the current situation in Dartmouth North and what we see or don’t see in the budget for the scenarios that I’m about to offer and to describe. When I was elected, when I first knocked on doors in the 2017 election, the thing that I heard most about in many parts of my community was the people’s concern about the rising rents. At that time, Dartmouth North, as I’ve said before, was a place where you could get a cheap place to live. At that time in 2017, rents were beginning to rise. There was this indication that things were getting a little out of hand. Meanwhile, income assistance rates were frozen, minimum wage was extremely low, there was quite a lot of unemployment at the time. It was a tough go for many people.
When I was elected, I went to our then-leader, the member for Halifax Chebucto, and I suggested that we introduce some legislation on rent control, which he thought was a good idea, so we did. That piece of legislation sat on the order paper for several years. We introduced it, reintroduced it, the government at the time was not interested in looking at rent control at all, even though we were sounding the alarm in the NDP caucus about rents rising and that kind of thing. In 2019, things began to change in a very identifiable, remarkable way, I would say.
I remember sitting in my office in the Summer of 2019 and reflecting to Sandi and Rebecca, who work with me, everyone who comes in this office now has an issue with housing. They said, it’s true. It wasn’t totally true, there were a few other things that we were doing in our office in terms of case work, but by and large we were beginning to see and hear stories of people getting evicted for funny reasons and not knowing that they could carry on an eviction process through Residential Tenancies to protect their rights. People were applying more for housing, for public housing, and being told that the wait-lists were two years long. People’s rents were going up in a way that was just unsustainable, and they literally were unable to pay for the rent increases, and renovictions began to become popular, as it were.
Then when the pandemic hit, we heard the then-Premier say the now famous words “Stay the blazes home.” People couldn’t stay the blazes home if they didn’t have a home to live in, so we lobbied hard for putting in a ban on evictions and some kind of rent cap and that did happen. For a while it was sort of just to manage the pandemic but then, of course, the pandemic hasn’t really ended yet, has it? Some things were sort of turning around a little bit to protect people. Meanwhile, the situation was getting worse.
Now we come to 2023 and we see that the rent cap is being extended, though no longer will it be a set-in-legislation rent cap, but it will be a set-in-Executive-Council rent cap. The minister has said he suspects the rent cap will be 5 per cent but we know that anything that is set in Executive Council is subject to change at any time, with no debate, no scrutiny, and no need to answer questions, so it’s a bit concerning.
Here we are now - rents are skyrocketing. In Dartmouth North we have the lowest vacancy rate in the province. The average vacancy rate for Nova Scotia is 1 per cent, which is unhealthy. We know that a healthy vacancy rate ranges around 3 per cent. In Nova Scotia our vacancy rate is 1 per cent, in Dartmouth North it is around 0.6 per cent, so it’s lower. It’s the lowest in the province. There is nowhere to rent an apartment in Dartmouth North. If people need to leave an apartment for a reason like the condition of the apartment - say it’s an unsafe building, say their neighbour is harassing them and they just don’t feel safe anymore, say they had their job hours cut and they no longer can afford something - if they try to find another apartment in Dartmouth North, it would be virtually impossible 5340 because every time an apartment comes up for rent, the rents are doubling and, in some cases, tripling.
At 71 Primrose, Mr. Speaker, there are a number of tenants - I think there are 16 units in that building, maybe a few more - who have all been told their units need to be renovated. I have been in some of the units, and they do not need to be renovated. I’m not a contractor, but I know a brand-new backsplash and brand-new cupboards and brand-new flooring when I see it. Many of the units literally have those things. They do not need improvements and if they did, they would not be the kinds of improvements that require someone to move out, but the tenants in this building have been told that, no, they need to leave and if they want to come back they certainly can but their rents will go up almost $1,000.
The Minister Responsible for the Residential Tenancies Act will say that this type of practice, or this type of thing that is happening, happens few and far - not very often, the occasional time this happens. The other thing that is happening in Dartmouth North is there is a gal who lives in my neighbourhood who was told by her landlord - she had a fixed-term lease - he would not be renewing her fixed-term lease, which I think she was paying upwards of $900 for her apartment, but he would not be renewing it because he had a family member who was going to move into the unit. A few weeks later, after she moved out of the apartment, she saw the unit listed on the internet at $2,200. So that landlord used the fixed-term lease loophole to get her out of that apartment and to charge more than double the amount that he was getting for that apartment. Now, I understand inflation. I understand that people are facing inflation, expenses are going up. I understand that if you pay for your tenant’s heat that it is going up. I understand that roofs cost more. I understand all those things, Mr. Speaker, but I don’t understand how this government can sit back and allow such an abuse of the Residential Tenancies Act.
That brings me to this budget, and what’s in this budget for housing. I hope I’ve painted a bit of a picture about the situation that’s happening. People are getting renovicted, people are getting kicked out because of a fixed-term lease loophole. People’s rents are rising. There is no place to go in public housing, and there is no place to go in market housing. And this budget has no money for new affordable housing. Now the Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs will say that the government has put millions of dollars into housing, and that is true. Millions of dollars into housing is true. But it’s not millions of dollars into affordable housing. And this government refuses to adopt a definition of affordable when it comes to those development deals, when buildings are going up - at least in HRM, apartment buildings and many, many units are being built as we speak. There are three or four in the tiny bit of Dartmouth North that I live in myself. And none of those units are guaranteed to have affordable units in them, none of those builds are guaranteed to have affordable units in them. The minster says, okay, so what we’ll do instead is we’ll provide rent subsidies. We’ve got 1,000 more rent subsidies coming. Except that you have to be paying more than 50 per cent of your income to now qualify for a rent subsidy. And the minister explains that - the reasoning for that change well, because there’s so much pressure on the program. Well, no kidding there’s pressure on the program. Rents are skyrocketing, landlords are misusing the Residential Tenancies Act to misuse fixed-term leases. Renovictions are happening all over the place, and there’s nowhere to live. So of course there’s pressure on the rent subsidy program. My office has been signing people up, or helping people apply to the rent subsidy program for at least six or seven months. Because it is literally the only way to stop people in my community from becoming homeless and adding to the tent communities that are already up and around Dartmouth North and other places in HRM.
We are hearing stories - I heard a story on The Current this morning, Mr. Speaker, about a woman in Bridgewater who has been living in a tent with her daughter, and they have to stop doing homework when it gets dark out, because there’s no more light to do homework. Think about that for a minute, folks. Think about that. Imagine raising a child, who goes to public school, in a tent. There’s another story that The Current played the other day about a woman, I think in Lunenburg, somewhere like that, who’s renovating a school bus to live in. Which would be kind of cool, but right now the cost of renovations is making it impossible for her to finish that job. This is the province that we are making decisions about and for.
This is the province where this government says there’s so much pressure on the rent subsidy program that we have to change the qualifications to cut out people who are in what the CMHC defines as core housing need. We recognize people are in housing need, but we’re not going to help them until they’re in deep housing need. That is reprehensible. It's a terrible move, Mr. Speaker. So what happens to folks who are in this situation? They pay more and more of their income, the little income they have, on their rent. Which means they buy less groceries, which means they go to the food banks, which this government is happy to support. No one goes to school hungry in this province, we heard that today. So people are using food banks, people are using the insufficient food programs there are in schools. People are just going hungry. People are splitting their medication prescriptions in half. Spreading their medications over longer so they’re becoming more unhealthy.
Therefore, we’re putting all kinds of burdens on people in general, and also our systems that we are trying to improve, like our health care system and our education system. When kids go to school hungry, they don’t learn as well. When people can’t take required medication that they’ve been prescribed, they get sicker and they’re more of a burden on the health care system. If we want to fix health care “more, faster,” then we need to properly invest in affordable housing. We need to make sure that everyone who needs one can access a rent subsidy. We need to make sure we’re actually building new affordable housing that is rent geared to income. That means it doesn’t cost more than 30 per cent of one’s income. And we have to make sure that people can buy nutritious food. These are not difficult concepts, Mr. Speaker. This is what we need to do to make sure that our population is healthy and that our health care system can flourish and can become a system of wellness. Imagine being the minister of the Department of Wellness. Well, we could have one, if we could do all of these other things that contribute to wellness in this province. I will end my time by saying that I am wholly disappointed that there is no real investment in affordable housing in this budget, that the rent subsidy program has been cut to shreds, and that this government thinks it’s okay that people go to food banks for their food instead of being able to afford their own purchasing of food in grocery stores or in a market. It’s shameful, it’s reprehensible, and we need to change it.
Supporting Our Unhoused Neighbours
This week I spoke in the Nova Scotia Legislature about the struggles of some of our unhoused neighbors. Here is what I had to say:
As we sit here, my constituency office in Dartmouth North is actively supporting at least nine people who are unhoused. Some are sleeping in tents in designated parks, some are sleeping rough wherever they can, some are staying in the emergency shelter in Halifax, some in their cars, and too few are in hotels. Over half are seniors, many have serious health concerns, and some have lost custody of their children. All of them desperately want stable and safe, not to mention adequate, affordable, and healthy housing. We help them call the shelter diversion line; they tell them they’re over capacity. We help them call shelters, put them in touch with housing support workers, help them apply for emergency housing. We help them find food and gift cards. Sometimes the best we can do is help them find a tent. It is a sad state of affairs when MLA offices have to give out tents. It’s simply not good enough. We owe it to everyone who is or is at risk of becoming unhoused to come together and take urgent and substantial action on affordable housing. We can and we must do better.
PERMANENT Rent Control Statement in the Legislature
March 12, 2021
Nova Scotia Legislature
Mr. Speaker, since the Legislature last met, in the Spring of 2020, the issue that I have heard about most in my community, even during COVID-19, has been, unsurprisingly, the problem of unaffordable rents and the need for permanent rent control. Like many other members here, I have received hundreds of emails and phone calls asking me to support rent control in this House. Rent control was also the issue that I heard about most on the doorsteps during the 2017 election - so much so that I brought the issue to our caucus to see if we could push this government to restore rent control, which the Liberal government had cut in the 1990s. Since then, myself and the member for Halifax Needham have tabled legislation on rent control, and both times the bills have died on the order paper due to the lack of support from this government. 200 ASSEMBLY DEBATES FRI., MAR. 12, 2021 Rent control can mean the difference between staying housed and becoming homeless for people in Dartmouth North and all over Nova Scotia, the difference between paying for groceries, medications, and power, or not paying for them. I fully support the temporary rent control measures that were introduced this past Fall. They have made a great difference to Nova Scotians, but we need full, permanent rent control. I hope this government will use this legislative session to bring that in.