New shelter planned for Nova Scotia town where homelessness is 'hidden'

You don't see many people sleeping on the streets in a place like New Glasgow but that doesn't mean homelessness isn't a problem there, according to a community member working to reopen a shelter in the Nova Scotia town.

Homelessness in Pictou County is "hidden," said Karen MacPhee, the president of the board of the new shelter. "It happens out of view."

The new shelter will be called Viola's Place after Viola Desmond, the African-Nova Scotian woman who challenged racial segregation in a movie theatre in New Glasgow in 1946. 

The goal is to open Viola's Place in the same building that housed the previous shelter, which was located in the basement of the Pentecostal Life Church on Marsh Street in New Glasgow, MacPhee said.

The LifeShelter closed in October 2016. For more than four years it had provided people a place to sleep during the winter months and ran a year-round community breakfast program. Organizers blamed declining church membership, financial pressures and the resignation of the pastor for the closure.

The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada has offered to sell the building to the Viola's Place Society for $60,000, MacPhee said. That's an "exceptional" price for that type of building in that part of town, she added.

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MacPhee said a number of local businesses have already pitched in to raise enough money to cover a $5,000 down payment on the building — due by the end of April.

Fundraising efforts are ongoing, and she said she hopes to have the new shelter open "as soon as we can."

Temporary shelter now open

In the meantime, the First United Baptist Church in New Glasgow is hosting a "temporary, temporary shelter," said Jessica Smith, executive director of the United Way of Pictou County.

The facility will only be open one night a week until more volunteers are found.

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There aren't any specific statistics on the number of homeless people in Pictou County, said Smith, but she has heard of people couch surfing, sleeping in cars and even "committing crimes so that they are temporarily housed in a jail."

Smith said she isn't sure what happened to those in need of a warm place to sleep in the area last winter, when there was no shelter space available, but it's possible they were referred to a similar facility in Truro.