The use of emergency shelters in Saint John was up more than 40-percent last year compared to 2015, according to the Saint John Human Development Council’s 2016 Progress Report on Homelessness, which also emphasizes the work that’s going into delivering programs on the ground.
The overall number of people using emergency shelters has increased to 327 from 230 and the average length of stay also increased.
The HDC’s Michael MacKenzie is the author of the report and says it’s important to give the numbers some context. He points to the closure of the Salvation Army Centre of Hope in 2014 and Outflow opening up a temporary emergency shelter in the north end in response.
“A 30-minute walk from the uptown core, where most people struggling with housing tend to live. So what we saw in 2014 was actually a huge decrease in shelter use,” says MacKenzie.
“That started to change in 2015 when Outflow moved to their current location on Waterloo Street. So, in March of 2015, they moved to their permanent location and so gradually the number of individuals accessing the shelter and their occupancey rate increased throughout 2015 and we saw that continue in 2016.”
While the latest figure of 327 isn’t unprecedented for Saint John, MacKenzie says that it was a “pretty staggering” increase:
“I would like people to take away from this, hopefully a better understanding of what homelessness looked like in 2016 in Saint John but also some of the ways that agencies in Saint John are trying to reduce homelessness.”
You can read the report by clicking here.
