Coming Winter Heats Up Housing Crisis
*This blog post was written on November 8, 2022. For the most up to date information on SSODA’s work and homelessness in Bridgewater, visit ssoda.org
In Bridgewater, many people struggle to cover the cost of housing—and many more have a hard time finding housing they can afford. With more pressure on community resources than ever, the just-launched South Shore Open Doors Association is already learning about what our community needs most.
“It’s been busy, but it’ll get even more so in the fall,” said Lisa Ryan, SSODA’s Executive Director over the summer. “We opened up to a backlog of need, and since then the world’s instability, inflation, and the coming winter is putting people who may currently be trying to take care of things on their own up against a wall.”
According to the Rental Rate Survey (which pulled from CMHC and Stats Canada data), rent in Nova Scotia before Covid averaged about $850 a month for a two-bedroom. Now, a search on Kijiji shows that rent has risen to $1400-2200 a month in the Bridgewater area. People working for minimum wage are pushed out of the market. As the cost of energy and property heats up, Ryan describes, everyone is squeezed in this perfect storm of pressure on landlords, businesses, and tenants.
“We counted 93 children that are homeless in Lunenburg County since we opened our doors,” she says. “It’s an impossible burden for these families to try and figure out where they can be safe for the night, every night. These are community problems that require community solutions. That’s why we’re here.”
While SSODA does not operate housing themselves, they work with local landlords and non-profits to identify properties that might suit the clients’ needs.
Once a new client is onboarded, SSODA’s Housing Support Workers do a deeper dive. A client may need a housing search plus access to emergency funding to get an energy bill paid, seek guidance to resolve their arrears, get identification, or open a bank account.
“We make sure people have all the documents they need to secure housing, and that’s so much more than just a landlord’s number,” explains Ryan. “We assess before we refer. We can help them catch up on a missed rent payment, or front them a damage deposit. We have a blanket of coverage to eliminate the strain on rental providers and work on those relationships, while removing barriers to access.”
Removing barriers is all about SSODA having strong connections to great partner organizations in the community—but in the first months of operation, Ryan reports that most are underfunded and under-resourced.
“We expected everyone working in this space to be very stretched, but now that we’ve started serving people—and given the havoc of Covid and the volatility of the economy—it’s significantly more of a barrier to action than we anticipated,” she says.
Further, SSODA’s first months of operation have surfaced families who may have sufficient income, but who simply cannot find a rental unit.
“Right now, homelessness is happening to people who never thought they’d experience it,” explains Ryan. “People coming onto our lists have mixed backgrounds and incomes. Some of them are people who are working professionals, who would have been able to have no problem renting two years ago. We really are in a serious situation. It’s a crisis.”
The commodification of housing—plus inflation and scant social assistance—puts the community at risk. As Ryan notes, shelters are last-resort, short-term band-aids that don’t address everyone’s needs.
“Large groups of people who are in precarious housing situations create stress that spills out into the community. We need a tenancy regulatory body to support landlords and tenants by enforcing laws to protect both. We all need government intervention that promotes stability.”
Organizations like SSODA are echoing the same across the country, warning of a significant wave of homelessness without a concentrated push for peer-supported housing, supportive units, co-ops, and public and non-profit housing.
“We have some hope,” says Ryan. “We’re working within a municipality that cares deeply about its residents, and that’s trying to meet their needs.”
Energize Bridgewater’s fresh approach to connecting our town’s administrators, partners, and residents – in the spirit that we’re all in this together—is a boost to residents who need real solutions.
“We see new energy everywhere, from community gardens to newly-insulated homes we know needed help to get through the winter,” says Ryan. “When the local government, service providers, landlords, and residents all understand the complexity of housing shortfalls, we can work together to drum up the ingenuity, creativity, and innovations to start making a difference.”
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The South Shore Open Doors Association has teamed up with the Town of Bridgewater to organize and event to mark National Housing Day on November 22nd, 2022 at 5:30pm at the Lunenburg County Lifestyle Centre. We want to gather community input into affordable and energy efficient housing and we warmly welcome you to attend the event to share your feedback.