How advocacy forced governments to confront Nova Scotia’s housing crisis

In Part 3 of our series about homelessness in Halifax and N.S., we hear from advocates who say the work of community members forced governments to acknowledge the housing crisis.

This is the third part of a three-day web series on homelessness in Nova Scotia. 

It’s been more than 100 days since dozens of Halifax Regional Police officers descended on parks around the municipality to remove unhoused people staying in crisis shelters, but the event remains on the minds of many as the housing crisis persists.

On Aug. 18, hundreds of people poured into downtown Halifax to call attention to the police-led evictions of unhoused people who had been living in parks because they had nowhere else to go.

The day culminated with officers deploying pepper spray into crowds of people and arresting 24 of the protesters.

The event has drawn condemnation from advocates, homeless service providers, and some members of the general public. A rally earlier this week called on governments and police to issue a public apology over the evictions and for the charges against protestors to be dropped.

But the evictions also led to a shift in the way the community at large looks at homelessness — and at the systems which punish those who are experiencing it.

“For those who were not willing to see that harsh reality, they can’t ignore it anymore,” said Campbell McClintock, the spokesperson for Halifax Mutual Aid.

Halifax Mutual Aid is a group of volunteers who build small wooden shelters for unhoused people to sleep in around HRM. Their shelters were the ones that were torn down in August.