NEW SHELTER FILLS THE GAP
With closing of Brunswick Street refuge,
Pendleton Place keeps people out of the cold

by James Keller

Robert Stewart, a regular guest at Pendleton Place , a new shelter run out of the basement of St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church on Brunswick Street , doesn't need to worry about finding shelter in the face of substance abuse. He is on methadone for his drug problems and he's sober when he arrives in time for the 4 p.m. check-in.

But he says some of the people he stays with would have nowhere to go if it weren't for Pendleton Place , which takes in people under the influence of drugs and alcohol, provided they behave themselves.

“Here, if you have a drink or something and you're not going to cause any problems, you're pretty much allowed to come in,” says Stewart, adding that most people at the shelter aren't high or drunk when they arrive for the night. “It's reasonable. Most shelters, if you drink or are on drugs, they can turn you away no matter how cold it is.”

Stewart, 34, has been on the street and bouncing between Halifax shelters, since 1992. Last year he spent much of the winter in a shelter run out of Brunswick Street United Church . This winter, with that shelter closed, Stewart turned to the Metro Turning Point shelter on Barrington Street .

Three weeks ago, he decided to try the newly opened Pendleton Place .

“I like this one better, because you can come in and out pretty much all night,” says Stewart.

The St. Leonard 's Society of Nova Scotia, a non-profit organization that provides shelters and residential services for needy people, set up the shelter in December with money from the province. After covering the rent and paying to renovate and refurnish the church basement, the Department of Community Services gave the shelter $230,000 to operate until April 30.

40 beds

The shelter opened on Dec. 22, two days ahead of schedule, and has 40 beds for men, women and young people 16 or older.

Three rows of beds covered in blankets and backpacks line the middle of the church basement, with tables and a cafeteria on one side, and couches and a TV on the other. A railing and tall dividers separate another set of beds at the end closest to the entrance, where people who are drunk or high sleep if they need to be separated from the rest of the shelter.

Even though people who may be intoxicated can stay at Pendleton Place , it is not a so-called “wet shelter.”

In a wet shelter, says Pendleton Place director Shirley O'Neill, people can use drugs and alcohol inside. At St. Patrick's, illicit substances stay at the door.

“We're an out-of-the-cold shelter that is employing a bit of a harm-reduction philosophy,” says O'Neill. “If someone comes in under the influence, as long as they're not aggressive or overly disruptive, they can spend the night here.”

Without the St. Patrick's site, the only option for homeless who were impaired was at the Metro Turning Point Shelter on Barrington Street , which provides temporary shelter for men 19 or older.

In December, Ottawa gave Metro Turning Point $58,000 to offer spaces for men with addictions.

But that shelter only takes in addicts they have dealt with before and know they can handle.

“We were taking people who we do know who are chronic users,” says Michael Humphreys, director of the Metro Turning Point Shelter. “Maybe by taking them in here they won't end up in the police lockup.”

Metro Turning Point only accepts men, another factor that highlights the need for the shelter at St. Patrick's, says Vicki Fraser, a spokesperson for the Department of Community Services.

“There are some women that are homeless, there are youth that are homeless, between 16 and 19, and they need a place to go, and sometimes there are couples who are looking for a place to go together so they won't have to be separated,” says Fraser. “We felt that we needed to accommodate some of those kinds of situations.”

Accepting people under the influence of alcohol or drugs and with severe mental illness at Pendleton Place required St. Leonard 's to hire 20 staff members with training to stop fights, and training in suicide intervention and first aid, including a therapist and a psychologist.

“We have really highly skilled staff,” says O'Neill. “We operate another shelter (Barry House), and we also have a community residential facility, so we have a pool of staff that we could draw from.”

The staff is qualified should any problems arise due to substance abuse, says O'Neill, but that hasn't happened so far.

“We've had one individual under the influence and a few times there have been difficulties with him,” says O'Neill. “For the most part, they come in, sleep it off and leave the next day without any concerns whatsoever.”

Beyond providing beds for people other shelters might turn away, Pendleton Place also filled the void left after the shelter at Brunswick Street United Church, started last winter as a shelter for homeless people with no where left to go, shut down.

Lack of funds

The Brunswick Street shelter closed because it did not have the funding to hire enough staff or properly maintain the facility, says O'Neill.

In November, this led Community Services Minister David Morse to meet with Halifax Regional Municipality Mayor Peter Kelly and more than two dozen community groups that deal with homelessness issues to discuss the city's shelters.

“We talked about the vacancy rates at shelters and occupancy rates and what services were being provided,” says Fraser. “It was felt as though there was a gap or a need that should be filled, and basically it was to put in place a similar service to what was offered last winter at Brunswick Street United Church .”

The St. Patrick's shelter has been open for little more than a month, but O'Neill says it is averaging 35 people per night.

“That's 35 people who aren't out on the street at night,” she says.

The current funding will only keep the shelter open until April. No one is sure whether it will open again next winter.

“The next step is getting together again as a group with the community groups in April to talk about how the shelter has worked since it has been in operation and trying to determine whether this type of shelter should be in place on an annual basis,” says Fraser.

Angela Bishop of Community Action on Homelessness says government should be looking at the issue in broader terms.

“We don't have a year-round solution for people who may have a drink or a toke, so once the weather hits, people that need alternative types of shelter won't have the option any longer,” says Bishop.

Fraser says Community Services needs to decide whether the extra shelter is the right way to address the city's homeless, or whether existing shelters can operate more efficiently to fill the gap.