Questions for Minister of Community Services about the Doubletree housing project - Committee of the Whole

Claudia Chender: Thank you Mr Chair. I’m just going to finish briefly with the line of questioning from last day. Last week I asked the minister about the Doubletree Hotel in Dartmouth. This is a 200 plus room hotel. No kitchen facilities in any of the units and there's huge questions from the community, and I would say from the greater community of folks working with the unhoused, around what the plans for this building are.

Our understanding, the rumour, is that it will be a continuation of emergency shelter services but of course we have huge questions around that. That's a lot of people. That's a lack of kitchen facilities. If it's supported, what kind of support will it be? How will the neighbourhood be involved in these conversations? What's the budget?

I'm aware of the division of the “homelessness portfolio” into DCS and the “housing portfolio” into Municipal Affairs and Housing, which I'll just take the opportunity to say I think is really weird. We all understand that housing exists on a Continuum and I think it's unfortunate that that's not reflected in our government structures.

But nonetheless, I think last week the minister said we'll have more to share as soon as next week and now it's next week. So I'm going to ask again, can the minister share anything about this project? Because there are lots of rumours, there's a huge amount of curiosity, and there are rumours because there is no information. What we hear on the news is the Province is going to strengthen its relationship with the hotel owner. Quite frankly, I have no idea what that means. I think it means the province is going to lease the hotel so if that's what it means maybe the minister could clarify. But genuinely, we just want to understand what's going on. Particularly for my office, so that we can help the community to understand and we can make sure that we can support it in whatever way is possible. Thank you.

Chair: I recognize the honorable minister of community services .

Minister of Community Services: Thank you very much, Mr Chair, and I thank the member for the question.

I know this is very important to the member as it directly affects her constituency and her constituents as well as a neighbouring constituencies. What I want to reassure to the member is that this is a colossal initiative that we're taking on. For rumours to be out there because there's no clarity of what's going on, I accept that somewhat. But our messaging and narrative has always been: when we fully have everything put together, we will allow everyone to know at the same time. We haven't been sharing little bits here or there.

We remain very, very committed to the individuals that are there now, and staying there, as well as committed to those partners that we're working with to ensure that we strike a balance between understanding and having all the proper details in place and logistics. We hope we get it right. That's always our goal, to make sure that the individuals that we're serving will have everything in place.

Again, as the member has mentioned about kitchen facilities, of course that would be one thing that we're trying to to work out. It's not like the first time we haven't been able to work something like that out, but there's a lot of different partners to have discussions with as we're always very conscientious about spending taxpayers money. We want to make sure that we're hitting the right balance with all the partners and organizations that we are in discussions with. And again, it's really important to ensure that no one that is currently there living there at the moment will not be displaced.

And we are into this week, and I assure the member that there will be more information to share this week. I'm sorry that it's not at this point in time but I am committed to making sure that everyone that is keenly interested in this initiative will be fully aware by the end of the week. So thank you very much.