St. Stephen's homeless continue struggling despite open shelter

Robert McFarlane sat on a picnic bench on the grass in front of St. Stephen's University (SSU), adapting tools to work on his bicycle. He has stayed at the Lighthouse Lodge shelter for homeless people, just across Main Street from the university, since late winter. Before that he lived for about two months in a derelict house at 18 Marks St., which provincial authorities boarded up under the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act in early March. He has lived under the Milltown bandstand and has stayed with a woman who kicks him out "repeatedly."

He replies that he does not know who set up the campsite a short walk away, largely hidden by trees but not far from the Ferry Point bridge in downtown St. Stephen. He does own the two bicycles at the campsite, he acknowledges, adding that he would clean up the site. "I've got to clean everything up. Every ****ing day I do this **** and I'm getting tired of it, man, you know? I'll hold 'em down and you cuff 'em. Sound good?" he says.

McFarlane, who was born in 1991, graduated from St. Stephen High School in 2009. "Don't have any long‑term plans at this point. If I had a million dollars, right? What would I do? Where would I buy a house? Right?" he says, working on his tools as he talked, frequently coughing up phlegm.

While he worked and talked at the bench, plans were already afoot for what municipal Chief Administrative Officer Jeff Renaud, speaking at the June Municipal District Council meeting, calls "a bit of a summit" on homelessness in St. Stephen. "The homelessness file, it definitely did not disappear when the shelter opened," Renaud said at the meeting.

The Lighthouse Lodge opened in the former Masonic Hall on Main Street just before Christmas, offering 30 beds and other support for people with no other place to live. However, campsites still pop up here and there, and the behaviour of some folks at the shelter upsets neighbours and draws police attention, affecting the municipal budget, Renaud noted. Mayor Allan McEachern and several councillors agreed with the CAO that St. Stephen needs a "continuum" of services. Right now, a person with no home moves "from park bench to tent to shelter, and it stops," with no transitional housing and other supports to follow, Renaud said. Councillor Emily Rodas, a social worker, added that local detox beds, so that addicts would not have to go to Saint John, would help.

Housing and programs for unsheltered people do not fall under municipal jurisdiction in New Brunswick, Renaud says, "but the impacts of the homeless population and the effects on the quality of life of our citizens is in our mandate, so my job is to hold agencies to task." He wants to bring police, healthcare and social service workers and others "all into one room to discuss who has what mandates, who has what resources," adding that he wants a "coordinated plan" to lay out at a public meeting."

"The shelter is one small piece of a large puzzle," Renaud said, to which Rodas, the social worker, agreed. "I have seniors that I know of that are discharged from the [Saint John] Regional [Hospital] to homelessness," she said, adding that Charlotte County needs more home support workers for dementia patients and better support for people on prescription medication.

Councillor Marg Harding would move the Lighthouse Lodge. "I think this shelter couldn't have been put in a worse place," she said, in a residential area close to downtown. Harding referred to calls she gets from neighbours upset at the behavior of some shelter residents and frequent police visits to the area, adding, "I feel sad for them [shelter residents]. I don't think they are getting one bit of anything from that shelter."

This brought a rejoinder from Councillor Joyce Wright: "There are people who are, like Councillor Rodas said, seniors being discharged to homelessness, and I know some of them and it breaks my heart." She added, "The shelter, while it has its challenges, also provides a very valuable need to some very desperate people, so let's keep that in mind."

MacEachern said that he spent two hours that day trying to help a woman in her 80s living in a tent in McAdam. The woman needs a small apartment for herself and two cats, the mayor said at the council meeting, adding in an interview several days later that he had spoken to McAdam Mayor Ken Stannix and that steps were under way to help this person. In the same interview, St. Stephen's mayor raised the possibility of a Chase the Ace‑type fundraiser with the proceeds going to help people in similar situations.

The mayor agrees that the Lighthouse Lodge fills a need in St. Stephen but also agrees that the community needs more services to help people move from the shelter back into regular society. He said at the council meeting that people saw the crisis of homelessness make its way eastwards across the continent for several years before reaching the St. Croix Valley. He says governments at all levels must continue to invest in "upstream" preventive measures that pay off in the future while dealing with a crisis now.

Back on the picnic bench in front of St. Stephen's University, McFarlane shows a screwdriver he "made up with a bunch of stuff I had lying around in my room," and he is thinking of adding a drill bit to the other end.

What does he think of all the talk in town about problems at the Lighthouse Lodge? "It's never been for me. I'm tired of it, is all I can say," he replies. And drugs in the shelter? "Drugs aren't the problem. People are," he replies, adding, "It's their problems, or how they act on the drugs."

How long does he plan to stay at the lodge? "I don't know. I live day by day. Get my work done. See the difference?" he asks, holding up a pair of pliers on which he has been reshaping the plastic hand‑grips.

He exchanges greetings with a man walking across the grass towards the encampment in the trees. "What's up?" McFarlane asks, adding, "I'll be right down."