St. Stephen sees increase in people sleeping rough

The town of St. Stephen is experiencing a new level of homelessness, according to local volunteers and activists.

The town has seen an increase in the number of people sleeping in tents in parks and near roads. 

A survey found that 50 per cent of the homeless population in the town have only been unsheltered in the last six months. It also found that half the respondents are experiencing homelessness for the first time. 

The survey was conducted by a newly created community working group, in collaboration with the province and a non-profit organization

"We're not dealing with a chronic population of unsheltered people. It really is a new situation for the people who are in it,"  said Kendall Kadatz, president of Future St. Stephen, a group working to reverse population decline and increase economic development in town. He's also a member of the new working group.

Kadatz said 30 people responded to the survey, but there's no way to know if that's the full number of people unable to find housing.

He said St. Stephen is at the point where homelessness is no longer a hidden struggle and has become more visible. Difficulties with addiction, the pandemic, and the shortage of housing have been compounded by inflation.

"All those things … have been building in the background and kind of came to a culmination point," he said.

"There were also a couple of evictions this summer that happened and that [put] some people [in] a situation where they had kind of run out of options."

CBC has previously reported that more than eight people were evicted from one apartment building in the town under the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act. The so-called SCAN Act is a civil procedure that allows provincial officers to find a way to evict people suspected of engaging in crimes such as drug trafficking and drug use, without having to prove the crime in court.

The province had said it would try to match people with available agencies and social organizations after they've been evicted.

Donna Linton, the co-ordinator of the food bank in St. Stephen, said two people who were evicted from that building are still homeless, and one is living in a tent and has a physical disability. She said she knows of two other people evicted from government housing for letting people into the building and hosting them.

Linton said she's been doing this job for almost 30 years and she's never seen an out-of-the-cold shelter in the town. But that doesn't mean the need hasn't been there.

She said in past winters, people struggling with homelessness would "couch surf," or sleep in the van at the volunteer centre.