
Pallet shelter protests in Whitney Pier, N.S., continue
CTV
People were out picketing again on Saturday along the main road in Whitney Pier, N.S., after being told that Pallet shelters for the homeless at this location in their community are still pretty much going ahead as planned.
People were out picketing again on Saturday along the main road in Whitney Pier, N.S., after being told that Pallet shelters for the homeless at this location in their community are still pretty much going ahead as planned.
"We feel very ignored and can't make it any more clear that we are for pallet homes but not in a residential area,” says resident Liv Howard. “So, they need to just listen."
On Friday, Nova Scotia's Community Services Minister Trevor Boudreau and Cape Breton Regional Municipality Mayor Amanda McDougall-Merrill met in Halifax about the issue.
The message afterward was that while residents' worries are being heard, they still feel the proposed location will work.
"I know there are concerns in the community”, McDougall-Merrill told CTV Atlantic on Friday. “I do feel confident that their concerns are going to be answered at the (upcoming) public meeting."
The area's councilor says people opposed to the Whitney Pier location have started to identify what they feel could be other sites for consideration and that they are looking at places that wouldn't be far away from things like health care, public transit and other amenities.
"Well, I just think that's shallow-minded of the minister, on a go-forward plan, not to even look at alternate sites”, says District 12 councilor Lorne Green. "(Residents) don't want to be seen as just simply not wanting it. They want to have a solution to it as well. They're working behind the scenes, and I will be advocating for them as well."