For Immediate Release
June 25, 2024
NL NDP Leader Jim Dinn (St. John’s Centre) is exasperated and upset after receiving an ATIPP today confirming that almost a month after government announced they would release a shelter standards report, there are still no details provided.
“It is unbelievable that the Liberal government continues to drag its feet on implementing necessary standards for shelters, or as the Minister of Housing likes to call them, “options,” said Dinn. “I have been inside for-profit shelters that this government likes to tout as ‘options’, and the conditions are shocking. Moulding floors, rat feces, no insulation. Who would want to choose this option to live in?
An ATIPP in April 2024 revealed that the government was working on shelter standards, and they were to be released June 3, 2024. As of today, the Liberal government has not lived up to their promise.
“While we have been waiting for the release of shelter standards, we have watched news stories about the murder of Rayna Dove, killed in a bedsit room. We heard about recently released inmates who would rather live in a tent that go to a shelter.
“In media earlier this month, the Minister of Housing said that, ‘If these shelters don't adhere to the standards that will come in, we won't be using them,’ but where are the current standards?” questioned Dinn. “We have been asking; volunteers supporting unhoused people having been asking. Why is the government so hesitant? Why are they not interested in safe and clean places for the people for whom they are paying rent?
“A third Tent City has set up in St. John’s because there are no resources, and no standards. I ask myself, “Does government even care?”
A copy of the ATIPP is attached.
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For further information, contact Eddy St. Coeur, Director of Communications, NDP Caucus at 729-2137 (o), or eddystcoeur@gov.nl.ca
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