For Immediate Release
15 March, 2024
NL NDP Leader Jim Dinn (MHA St. John’s Centre) is concerned that the growing homelessness population could quickly become catastrophic.
A recent ATIPP reveals that the number of calls the Emergency Shelter line received between September 2023 and February 2024 was approximately 24,500. This represents 1017 unique individuals who have sought emergency shelter beds in the same time frame. Tent City in St. John’s now has more people residing in it than when it started by the Confederation Building in September last year. There are approximately 317 shelter beds across the province.
“This number is shocking”, says Dinn. “It shows how extreme the need for housing in our province has become and it’s clear that the Liberal’s photo opportunities and multi-point plans are not meeting the need.”
Yesterday the Pulling Together: Addressing Housing Insecurity in Newfoundland and Labrador report was published by Municipalities NL and Choices for Youth. It indicated that the number of homelessness in our province is being under-reported. The report suggests that community-level data “should be multiplied by at least three to give a more accurate understanding of the true scope of the issue”.
This means we possibly have upwards of 3051 homeless people across the province.
“We are spending millions on emergency shelters. We have a new housing minister and we don’t know what his mandate is, what his department will look like,” said Dinn. “He cannot bring himself to say that housing is a fundamental human right. Instead he promotes a shelter line, however we know that people cannot get calls returned.”
“Homelessness is continuing to grow and we are calling on government to take this situation seriously. Let’s see the mandate of the new housing department.”
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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