St. Stephen residents discuss homelessness issues, solutions

St. Stephen Municipal District Council will form a community driven committee to propose solutions to homelessness, addiction and crime. Council would also support a community effort to establish a Neighbourhood Watch program.
These results came at the end of an animated regular monthly meeting on June 28, when Mayor Allan MacEachern and his council heard an earful from citizens, crowded out into the hallway, on all sides of these issues.
Municipal Chief Administrative Officer Jeff Renaud undertook to present draft terms of reference for the proposed committee in about two weeks. He also undertook to direct staff to speak with the RCMP about a presentation to the community on Neighbourhood Watch.
Tents began popping up in St. Stephen last summer, especially after the authorities shut down an apartment building on Schoodic Street. Many people connect homelessness, addictions and crime, but several speakers stressed at the meeting that these are separate, if related, problems.
Neighbourhood Works ran a night time warming shelter on Prince William Street from December to April, with funding from the municipal and provincial governments. The province also funded an outreach worker, based at Neighbourhood Works, to help homeless people get help.
Vic Thiessen, a founding member of the Unsheltered Persons Working Group, reported to council that the outreach worker helped six people get government identification documents, provided information and supplies on harm reduction to 22 people, two to leave unsafe living conditions, mental health support for five, information on recovery to 10, permanent housing for six, detox for nine, long term recovery for three, recovery referrals for six, five to get part time work and nine to attend out of town medical appointments and court dates.
A total of 71 individuals used the warming centre, 93% of them from Charlotte County, he reported. He uses the word "myths" to describe statements that transient people were bused in, that people came to St. Stephen for free meals at Neighbourhood Works and that most crime can be attributed to unsheltered people. Answering a question from Councillor Marg Harding, he said that there would be about 35 homeless people in this community at any one time.
He also stated that the warming centre operated "with no serious incidents," which brought a sharp reply from businesswoman Adriann Walsh in the public comment section of the meeting. She described a man screaming for hours and banging doors, a door being smashed, a bicycle being thrown repeatedly against a door and a man sitting on the steps "smoking meth" while high school students walked by, "all of which I would call quite serious."
She urged council to temper "compassion" with "common sense." Compassionate actions draw transient people to this town, she contends, arguing that councillors, charitable groups and other responsible parties should bear financial responsibility for crime and other costs that they may cause.
Tony Hall, describing himself as an "addict" for 11 years, said that he never set out on his "hard road to recovery" until he got help he needed from Neighbourhood Works. Detox can help people "if they're ready," he says, "but if they're pushed in the woods, it's not going to help."
"Five months ago, I had a book bag on my back, the town spun around me and it was dark, and now I've got a job, I've got an apartment and it's just that compassion from the community," he stated. Hall seemed to agree with Walsh on one point, namely, the lack of legal accountability for using drugs. "I got caught three times with crystal meth and my worst punishment was, 'Don't do it again,'" he said, adding, "There's no consequence. That's all I've got to say."
Marissa Wiebe stated that she and her wife had to move four times last year due to lack of housing and other issues. St. Stephen has "thriving community resources," she said; however, "It's hard to share when one person has a lot and the other person doesn't, but I think we could dream a little bit more collectively."
Matt Potts from Oak Bay said he has been homeless "multiple times," sometimes his fault, sometimes not, "and, I'm ashamed, yet not, to admit that I did have to commit a crime in some cases ... because, otherwise, I don't get to eat."
Business people could help by offering work to homeless people, he said. "Nobody was willing to do that. Everybody looked at me like I was dirty. It didn't matter what I looked like, I was dirty," he stated.
Data show that helping people beat drug addictions and providing temporary "starter" housing assists people to get on their feet, he said, challenging people to give five dollars apiece to provide homeless people food. "The problem is homeless people are here; they exist; they are not going to go away with anger; they're going to go away with help," he said, adding, "I was able to turn around with help."
Gwendolyn Bultena said she had to "live rough" after she left a strict religious community at 16. "I pulled myself out by the bootstraps," without resorting to crime or drugs, she said, urging people to stop conflating homelessness, addictions and crime.
"What you don't have a program for right now is the young 16 year old girl, and I'd like to say I slept with a knife under my pillow for fear of my safety but I didn't have a pillow. You have youth living in your town that are homeless, you just don't know who they are," she said, adding, "If you take people and you drive them into the woods, you don't know what they are doing. They will form communities of their own."
Elizabeth Hyslop, who says she grew up in poverty in Saint John, challenged citizens to deal directly with those less fortunate. "One of these homeless, horrible junkies that are vandalizing everything and ruining the whole world has showered twice in my house, has had meals in my house and I bought him $200 worth of clothes," she said, adding, "If you want to make a change, it's every butt in every chair. It's not council, it's not the police, it's your butt in your chair."
Brianna Cowie says she has met unsheltered people at community meals at Neighbourhood Works and expressed satisfaction at the number of younger people at the meeting showing interest in the community.
Renaud recommended that councillors not form a majority of the proposed community committee and that, if a councillor chairs this group, the vice chair should not be a councillor. MacEachern agreed that this would help the community buy into whatever the committee proposes.
MacEachern also apologized on behalf of council for Councillor Earle Eastman's suggestion at the May meeting that Oak Bay campground be used as a tenting site for homeless people. Joe Moffatt demanded the apology, stating that he and his wife Kathy lease this property from the province and run a successful business injecting money into the local economy. A statement by one member does not mean that council, as a whole, supports it, the mayor said.
Deputy Mayor Ghislaine Wheaton brought home how these issues facing St. Stephen cut when she noted that, in her former career as an educator, she taught one of the speakers at the meeting who described himself as an addict.