Residents of tent encampment at Grand Parade can now access electricity

A tent encampment at the centre of Halifax's downtown core has been outfitted with generators to provide residents with electricity.

Tents first began popping up in the square this summer and since then, more temporary lodgings have been set up in the area, including ice-fishing shelters to help protect people from the elements. 

Stephen Wilsack, a volunteer at the encampment, said he and other volunteers put in a proposal to the city to provide electricity to the tents at Grand Parade last month. Last week, they got approval and now each tent has electricity.

Wilsack said "the power of power" can help give the people who are living at Grand Parade "a sense of independence."

"They have the ability to charge their phone, so they have communications and at nighttime it gets extremely dark, so they have the ability to have their own light," he said. "There's a sense of calmness and for the first time, I believe the residents are actually feeling like they have their own space, their own home."

Installing a generator at the site was made possible by several other partners, Wilsack said, including Star Power Atlantic, which sells and rents emissions-free generators and William F. White International, a production services company that donated equipment to run power lines over the area.

Wilsack said he and fellow volunteer Matthew Grant also used funds from their GoFundMe campaign to hire labourers to help with the project.

One resident, Oshane Anthony Johnson, has been living at the site since just after Christmas. He said having power has greatly improved his living conditions.

"It's a … huge difference," Johnson said. "The tent's warm, there's light and it's cozy."

It's a stark difference to residing in the tents before the electricity was installed, he added, which had been "rough" and "chilly" since temperatures dropped.

At Grand Parade, there is a sign from the city saying there should be no fuels or gasses, open flames, heaters or smoking in or near tents to prevent fires. But there have been several fires at encampments that destroyed tents and equipment.

Wilsack said despite that, individual residents are "making the choice between keeping warm and freezing."

"We're freezing right now. We have storms coming," he added, saying heaters help stave off the chill of colder days and nights. "This is a matter of life and death."

Though some of the people living at Grand Parade have been grateful for the power, Wilsack stressed this is not a permanent solution.

"Unfortunately, we're still talking about tents. We're still talking about the middle of winter. This whole situation is wrong," he said. "It's going to take everybody in order to try to solve this encampment challenge. It's going to take everybody to … deal with the unhoused."

Wilsack and the other volunteers are now working to provide residents with winter sleeping bags for sub-zero temperatures.