‘The need is there’: Lower Sackville to get large chunk of N.S. public housing investment

More than half of the recently announced funding for public housing in Nova Scotia will be allocated towards construction of new units in the Lower Sackville area.

Following the Nova Scotia government’s announcement that 222 public housing units will be built throughout the province, one Halifax Regional Municipality councillor is feeling an extra sense of optimism about how the new supply will impact his district.

Coun. Paul Russell said it’s “fantastic” that $48 million of the funding will be allocated towards constructing units in his district of Lower Sackville. On Wednesday, the provincial and federal government announced a plan to add to the public housing stock for the first time in three decades.

“The $83 million that the province is investing in public housing is phenomenal,” he said.

“What we’ve been seeing with the unhoused population is that more and more of those people are working, and in some cases, there’s a couple working two full-time jobs and they still aren’t able to afford a home.”

The province is pitching in $58.8 million to the project, while the federal government is contributing $24.4 million. Public housing is residential space owned and operated by the government, with rent based on a household’s income rather than market rates.

Russell said the housing need throughout the municipality is “extreme,” with a skyrocketing increase of people in the area sleeping rough since 2018.

“In 2018, we knew about 18 people across HRM that were homeless and in 2023, in July, we had about 178. It doesn’t include those who are living in other structures, these are people strictly living in tents,” he said, noting that the population continues to outpace housing construction.