New Brunswick group pitching sleep pods for homeless

By Andrew Bates, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Telegraph-Journal

A new non-profit group of Sussex community members says it’s trying to find support for solutions to keep people warm this winter.

While Sussex lacks a warming centre or emergency shelter, the Kings Regional Service Commission says it’s working on finding the right long-term solution so it can make the argument to the province for funding.

Refuge Kings County has a six-person board and started up in September to “assist with the needs of housing in our community,” said Sarah Smith, a board member. She said the group has developed “sleep pods” that could be built for $515 and is offering them to municipalities, but it can’t build them unless it has willing partners.

“We think of hope, shelter and safety as kind of our main priorities in this time,” she said. “You can instill hope in pretty small measures, and the current idea that we have, which was a sleep pod, was with that in mind.”

Smith, who has spent 22 years in community nursing, said the group includes concerned neighbours who have visited local encampments, those with personal experience of homelessness as well as someone involved in low-income housing in Sussex.

She called the proposal a “low-budget idea we made.” They are semicircular huts with a foam mattress and a sleeping bag, which Smith said was “better than a tent or a tarp.

Carpentry departments at local schools have offered to help build them, Smith said, and her husband, who helped design them, spent a night in one. In a video posted to the group’s Facebook page, he notes that it’s one degree Celsius inside while it’s about -3 degrees outside.

She said they went to the Town of Sussex on Nov. 17 and offered them six pods, adding “if it’s not a feasible solution to you, tell us what is and let us help.”

She said the group is also preparing to present in Hampton and Valley Waters.

“There’s no sense building them if it they’re not willing to accept them,” she said.

At the town’s committee of the whole meeting Nov. 24, Coun. Fred Brenan said Smith’s presentation was “heartfelt and sincere” but that the focus on the town was incorrect, with the responsibility resting with the RSC and province.

Deputy Mayor Tim Wilson said the town’s letter in response to the group stated that a regional approach covers both emergency sheltering and “interconnected needs of security, addiction and mental health services” as well as long-term housing and stability.

He said he challenged Smith on the effectiveness of the pods, saying that “I’m not sure that those pods would be effective on a January night with 40 kilometre needs at minus 20 or more.”

Speaking after the meeting, Mayor Marc Thorne said that it’s “extremely hard to address all the concerns” in a way “that satisfies the needs of everyone,” saying some communities struggle even when they have provincial help.

“One of the things we don’t want to do is to start taking off in our own direction, now, with having people with great intentions, the best of intentions, coming directly to this community or that community,” Thorne said. “We would like everything to be coordinated through the RSC so that way you can try to avoid the pitfalls that naturally come along with this.”

James Keirstead, director of community development for the Kings RSC, works directly with clients sleeping rough through provincially funded outreach workers.

He said they’re in a stronger position than last year, with an experienced outreach team and partnerships with local groups, including StreetTeam Sussex, which delivers meals. While Sussex doesn’t have its own shelter, Keirstead said they have “referral pathways with existing shelters to support people in immediate danger.”

He said Dec. 3 that there are 17 people identified as sleeping rough in Sussex, a number he expects to grow as more outreach workers contact more people, as well as about 17 precariously housed who could end up on the street.

“Our team works directly with clients who are sleeping rough now and identifying their specific needs,” Keirstead said. “In rural communities, there isn’t a lot of infrastructure for supportive and transitional housing, sort of a new problem that each community is dealing with in their own way.”

Keirstead said the RSC’s primary goal is “trying to co-ordinate support … trying to reduce duplication and stretch some very thin resources as far as they can go.” He said they’ve connected with the Refuge Kings County group and is “co-ordinating as best we can.”

“Our focus right now is on making sure that any tangible housing projects that are developed in the region are safe, sustainable and dignified,” Keirstead said. “We’re providing information and data to try and support that to make sure that whatever their final project is meets the needs of the region and checks all the boxes as far as safety.”

He said that long-term sustainability is the hardest part of developing a project, and they have to look at challenges from other regions.

“We try and think on a longer time scale, of, if today’s solution creates bigger problems tomorrow, then maybe we should pause and look at it,” he said, saying they rely on the experience and best practices from the provincial ministry of social development.

Keirstead said that “advocacy continues” with the province, saying they’ve gathered “very good data” to show that rural communities need a supportive or transitional housing model.

“The services in Saint John, Fredericton and Moncton are already overwhelmed,” Keirstead said. “Displacing rural clients to take part in those services puts a burden on both parties.”

They can refer people to shelters, Keirstead said, but many clients don’t want to go to a city for an emergency shelter because their family or friends are here.

He said they’re looking to work with the communities to identify the right types of supportive housing and then connect that information with funders like Social Development.

“It’s very frustrating on our part, because our job is to collect the data and identify the needs, but in many cases we’re not the ones that do the follow up and see the project completed,” Keirstead said. “It’s a lot of advocacy and … making recommendations and hoping that those efforts lead to something.”

In a statement, social development spokesperson Ariel MacKenzie said Monday that the province is “committed to working collaboratively with municipalities and service providers.”

She said that the ministry supports the outreach team, engages with individuals “to help connect them with essential services and safer housing alternatives” and has provided $7.4 million in emergency funding for non-profit housing providers to expand access to transitional and supportive housing.

Smith said that creating a “wonderful idea” can take months, and things are getting colder in the meantime, and she “would feel some personal responsibility” if people don’t survive the winter.

“That grandiose plan I’m hearing about doesn’t sound like something for this winter,” Smith said. “We’re basically the same as we were … they exist and they’re wandering around in the night, but there’s nothing here for them.”

She said an encampment near the river was given a notice to be evicted as of Nov. 30, over concerns around safety in a flood plain.

Sussex CAO Jason Thorne said Dec. 4 they’ve been working with the outreach workers to let people in the encampment know they should move, and a staff member did say “he would like for them to be moved for the end of November” but it was not an order, and was not enforced.

Smith said that Sussex lacks a shelter or warming centre, and said she told council there needs to be at “bare minimum” a 24/7 place where people can access a bathroom, charge a phone or sleep. She said that the group don’t have enough money yet to rent a place for a drop-in, which would need to be “cost-shared,” but could be staffed with volunteers.

Keirstead said they continue to “advocate for more supports in rural communities,” but said whether to accept an emergency shelter is a municipal decision.

Jason Thorne said that the town has told the RSC, which is currently managed by a trustee after the board was suspended in September last year, that before starting a new project, “greater clarity is needed” on the future and mandate of the RSC, and what the province plans to do. The town’s response said that a functioning board would be able to vote on a plan which “clearly outlines all key particulars” including security, addictions services and resource commitments, and that the province should add an “expanded social mandate” designation to the RSC, with funding to match.

Smith said Dec. 3 that the group had held two meetings at Leonard’s Gate and was planning another for the next day. She said their first official fundraiser was a Gary Morris concert on Nov. 14.

Smith said that would like to build 10 to 12 pods, but if there’s no market for them they’ll move onto a different project.

“We will happy to switch to something else if that’s necessary,” she said. “I don’t think it needs to be grand and expensive … but turning a blind eye and pretending they’re not here, that’s just not acceptable.”