自由主义者投票减少动议，以获取有关新斯科省人的更多数据

自由主义者勉强同意举行一次会议，讨论新斯科舍省的住房危机，但在周二的常务委员会会议上，不支持有关潜在无家可归者的更多数据的动议。

The legislature’s Standing Committee on Community Services met virtually with “Housing and COVID-19 and the homelessness crisis” on the agenda. The committee heard from Eiryn Devereaux, deputy minister of the Department of Infrastructure and Housing; Tracey Taweel, deputy minister of the Department of Community Services; and西新斯科舍省家庭服务协会执行董事Art Fisher。

The meeting was timely: on Monday the government收到了经济适用房委员会的报告，由Devereaux共同主持，建议反对永久租金控制，并有利于立即花费2500万美元购买住房。就在上周a report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Nova Scotia，，，，independent from government, called for the creation of 30,000 permanent affordable housing units with capital spending of more than $500 million.

Devereaux and Taweel used their opening remarks Tuesday to highlight what they’re respective departments are doing to provide housing, while Fisher used his time to sound the alarm on Nova Scotia’s housing crisis, exacerbated by the pandemic.

费舍尔说：“我认为最终，Covid-19使得可见的是什么是从尤其是乡村新斯科舍省，尤其是我们所有正在挣扎的社区中大量的财富。”

“I don’t think the real estate phenomenon is actually a phenomenon I feel it’s a deliberate extraction of wealth from our communities.”

费舍尔的组织，Family Service Association of Western Nova Scotia, provides housing support in Lunenburg and Queens counties through Freeman House in Bridgewater.

As of a few weeks ago, Fisher told the committee, there were 54 people between the ages of 12 and 24 either unhoused or at risk of eviction in those areas. As of Monday, that number was up to 61, Fisher said, and there are 107 adults in the same situation.

那只是人Family Service Association of Western Nova Scotia and their partners are working with, Fisher said.

他说：“我认为所有数据总是被低估了。”

费舍尔说，他厌倦了参加人们谈论成功故事的会议。

“And I’m getting more and more frustrated by the success stories, because the success stories often don’t show us where the gaps are. They don’t show us where our systems are failing people,” he said.

There’s a need for more supportive housing, not shelters, Fisher said. The organization has been trying to build a 50-unit development including up to 35 supported housing units, and it’s hit barriers at every stage.

“It’s been a very frustrating process to try to bring funders together to do when co-investment application for that site. For example, I’ve been told over and over again, ‘Well, we’re not we’re not actually doing new builds now. You can get this funding later when the new build funding comes out.'”

MLAs question deputy ministers

During the question period of the meeting, the deputy ministers didn’t have answers to many of the MLAs’ questions.

民主党MLA丽莎·罗伯茨询问是否department had set a target percentage of affordable units for the province, recognizing only 4% of units in Halifax were renting at non-market rates as of 2016.

Devereaux said he thinks a longer term plan for housing should have that sort of target, and he said the department had one currently but he couldn’t name it.

NDP MLA Kendra Coombes询问目前在酒店房间里安置了多少收入援助接收者。塔维尔没有数字。

PC MLA Brian Comer asked Devereaux how many affordable housing units have been built in Nova Scotia in the last decade.

“Over the last 10 years, I don’t have the stats right in front of me,” Devereaux said, but he claimed there have been tens of thousands of affordable housing units “supported for repairs and adaptations.”

Comer asked whether homelessness has increased in Nova Scotia since the beginning of the pandemic.

塔维尔说：“我认为这是一个复杂的问题。”“当然，大流行对许多人造成了很多挑战，我认为正如所强调的那样，低收入的人，脆弱的新斯科舍省人当然比其他新斯科舍省相比，弱势群体的影响更大。”

在哈利法克斯地区，去年的姓名列表中有近500人，该数字现在降至383。全省其他地区的数字基于某些地区的时间点计数。

“The point of my question was just to identify that there are significant data gaps,” Comer said.

Later in the meeting, Comer moved “to ask the department to compile data on how many people will be at risk of eviction once the pandemic is over, so we can better prepare for the steps that need to be taken in order to properly hold these individuals.”

罗伯茨赞成这一动议。

“Certainly given that there’s no indication from government that there will be an extension of or introduction of more rigorous form of rent control after February 2022, it seems like a very worthwhile motion,” Roberts said.

自由主义者MLA本·杰索梅（Ben Jessome）担心该委员会没有“有驱逐风险”的定义。

“Not having a definition at this committee level, I think is not relevant,” PC MLA Steve Craig said. “I think that the government ought to know what what risk of eviction means. And if they don’t have a definition of that they should come back and tell us that they don’t, or they should come back with defining that and some numbers.”

委员会的所有自由主义者 - 杰西姆，利奥·格拉文，拉法·迪科斯坦佐，苏珊娜·洛恩斯·克罗夫特和比尔·霍恩 - 投票反对这一动议，并被击败。

The Liberals did vote in favour of another motion, from Craig, to add a meeting to the committee’s schedule to further discuss the housing report released this week. The committee would typically take July and August off, and meet next in September.

克雷格说：“该报告要求在100天内采取大量行动，因此，如果我们等到9月，这将使我们进入9月。”

“在此之前，我希望能够提出问题。Implementation of some of these recommendations and particularly the four that they’re talking about the action items around it are significant, and I doubt if in fact the legislature for example is going to be called back to change some of the legislation required, and that’s been suggested in the report, so I do think that this committee has a legislative oversight responsibility to ask some of these questions beforehand.”

Lohnes-Croft didn’t immediately support Craig’s motion.

洛恩斯·克罗夫特（Lohnes-Croft）说：“我只是想知道为什么今天的会议不会在这次会议上讨论这段时间。”

Craig said that wasn’t the topic for Tuesday’s meeting, and the report was only released the day before.

洛恩斯·克罗夫特（Lohnes-Croft）还希望克雷格（Craig）认识到，夏季会议将是规范的例外。

The motion eventually passed unanimously.

---

The Halifax Examiner is an advertising-free, subscriber-supported news site. Your subscription makes this work possible;please subscribe。

有人要求我们还允许读者一次性捐款，因此我们通过下面的贝宝按钮创造了这个机会。我们还接受您的信用卡的电子转移，支票和捐款；有关详细信息，请联系Iris“ AT” Halifaxexaminer“点” CA。

Thank you!