The Public Face Of Abject Poverty: Haligonian NIMBYites Call It In

A panhandler sits bundled up on a city street holding up a sign saying
The Panhandler photo by Morgan is licensed under CC BY 2.0
A Haligonian prepared to accept verbal abuse for spare change. These days the homeless are experiencing the abuse without the change.

Haligonian? Noun — a common name for residents of Halifax, Nova Scotia. It’s a city like many in North America that has heeded the call of NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) to trample homeless encampments with police boots. Overkill photos are available in the following article.

What inspires a city to chase the homeless over hill and dale and back again (park and sidewalk in more modern language)?

City authorities will act in support local businesses concerned about blocked access to their shops. They will respond to the tourism industry that feels that the homeless will drive away sightseers (though the visible homeless are these days to be found in tourist hotspots everywhere)1.

But just what floats a city council’s boats when frustrated neighbours speak up? A survey of the city’s 311 call-in phone service, which fields citizen complaints, provides fine detail of what pisses off Haligonians when abject poverty invades their neighbourhood space.

Read more at CBC: Garbage, safety among complaints to city about homeless encampments, documents show

Jeff Karabanow, one Haligonian who teaches in the Social Work Program at Dalhousie University, has been talking with people who experienced homelessness in Halifax during the COVID response.

Karabonow was also on the front lines as a service provider and service coordinator. As a service provider, he volunteered as a member of Halifax’s Out of the Cold Community Association. This largely volunteer group normally provides extra emergency shelter beds and meals in the winter months. The program had to make significant adjustments (including cranking down the number of people who stayed overnight in the program) to follow the public health guidelines and continue to operate during COVID.

As a service coordinator, Karabanow participated in on-line meetings with government officials and other service providers to plan and implement the COVID response across Nova Scotia. There he advocated to open hotel spaces as temporary shelter as well as other measures to provide better protections for people experiencing homelessness during COVID.

A journalist with Dal News (the University’s online magazine) caught up with Karabanow, to learn more about his research and experience. He talks about what it is like to engage with the people who experience homelessness and to work with the people who have been providing support. He recommends changes based on experience, which are backed up by local and international research. It’s quite a contrast to the complaint calls to 311.

Read more at Dal News: Ask An Expert: Jeff Karabanow On How The Pandemic Affected The Homeless And Those Trying To Help Them

Footnotes

  1. Or perhaps they continue to follow the direction of Nova Scotia’s Premier in the early days of the pandemic: “stay the blazes home.”