The City of Saint John has been moving ahead with its Housing for All strategy.
But there is some frustration on Common Council regarding how fast things are moving.
Council received an update Monday, and while some parts of the strategy implementation are going well, some issues have arisen.
The primary point of contention is the implementation of red, yellow and green zones around the city.
Cara Coes, the city’s senior manager for community support services, said 15 people have been removed from 11 encampments around the city and nine encampments in red zones have been fully vacated.
Coes said another nine encampments are now in yellow zones.
As for challenges, Coes said there’s been an increase in the number of homeless people with complex needs that require what she called “provincial solutions.”
“This is a gap that the Housing for All strategy does not address,” she said.
Coes said there are also 61 new homeless people in Saint John since August, when the first green zone opened.
And as far as the initial red zone success, Coes said there are still 18 encampments in those areas.
“The majority of these individuals are high acuity or have health and mobility challenges where a yellow zone may not currently work,” she said.
Coes said staff would like to remove specific deadlines for final relocations from red zones in light of specific needs for individuals.
“The timing will be on a case-by-case basis, informed by what those individual needs are,” she said.
The intent of the report was that council would receive the report for information purposes.
But Coun. Gary Sullivan was not having it.
“I’m a little frustrated,” Sullivan said. “In September, we had two special meetings of council to address the implementation of the Housing for All strategy. There appeared to be urgency on behalf of staff and council in response to the urgent situation we have in Saint John.”
Sullivan said at the same, a motion from Coun. Greg Norton was being discussed.
That motion included a plan that would have simply removed encampments from city property.
“I can’t help but wonder that when Coun. Norton’s plan did not receive the endorsement of council that city staff perhaps lost some of the urgency to follow the plan approved by council,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan focused on the 18 remaining encampments in red zones.
“While I believe that our green zone initiatives are a very great success, our red zone implementation plan is a failure,” Sullivan said. “I do understand that there may be specific circumstances due to individual needs and specific relocation plans may be needed, but 18 encampment sites are still in the red zones while only nine have been removed.
“That’s a 33 per cent success rate. That’s a failure.”
Sullivan criticized the report’s suggestion that the implementation plan remove specific deadlines.
“A goal without a date is just a dream,” he said. “The accountability to this council of a plan that we instituted isn’t here if we just remove the dates.”
Coun. Mariah Darling said they were empathetic to the difficulties in implementing the plan, but also frustrated.
“It feels, to put it simply, like the exception has become the rule,” Darling said, referring to the need for specific plans to move people from red zones.
Darling said more urgency is needed now.
“It’s not enough to hear again that a plan or a letter or something is coming later,” Darling said. “We and our constituents and our citizens need to see something now because folks are far past frustrated.”
Rather than vote to receive the report, council voted to direct the chief administrative officer to continue with the plan as approved in September.
