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The Nova Scotia government says it reserves the right to ask provincially funded shelters to remove specific people from their facilities. But it won’t say whether it made such a request to a shelter in New Glasgow last month.
The director of the shelter says she started getting calls from an employee of the provincial Department of Opportunities and Social Development on Sept. 17 about a person who had recently arrived at its 20-bed facility.
“There was a considerable amount of interest in this individual in particular,” said Lisa Deyoung, executive director of Northstar Shelter and Support Services, during an interview last week.
She declined to name the man to protect his privacy, but said he recently completed a jail sentence for what Deyoung described as “relatively minor offences.”
“Eventually it came down to receiving a call,” said Deyoung, “asking us to remove this individual immediately.”
Opportunities and Social Development Minister Susan Corkum-Greek declined an interview about communications with the Northstar shelter about the man.
The department would not say whether it made such a request to Northstar, saying in a written statement to CBC News that it can’t comment on specific situations relating to people accessing shelters.
Deyoung says the request to remove the man, and Northstar’s subsequent refusal to do so, came less than 24 hours before the province announced it would end the shelter’s funding in 90 days.
In a news release last month, Northstar said it is not alleging there is a connection between the removal request and the funding decision. In August, the New Glasgow council voted to ask the province to close Northstar, the town’s only shelter, citing years of complaints on a number of issues including open drug use in the area.
The department said in a statement that the funding decision was not related to any one individual or incident.
But the shelter still has questions for the province that remain unanswered.
Deyoung says it was the first time the department had asked Northstar to remove someone from the shelter.
“This is very uncommon. And when the request did come in via phone, I did ask for them to put that in email and they would not,” said Deyoung.
CBC News spoke to the operators of three different provincially funded shelters who said they have never received a request from the province to remove someone from a facility.
Dwayne Wright, Northstar’s board chair, says the province doesn’t have grounds to tell shelters who they can and can’t serve. Northstar is an independent charity that is not owned or operated by the province but does receive funding.
But the province says it does have the right to request a person’s removal from a shelter, under certain circumstances.
“There can be circumstances where restrictions are put in place or an individual is asked to leave because of serious safety or conduct concerns,” reads the statement.
“When serious safety concerns arise, we work with service providers to ensure those concerns are addressed and appropriate action is taken.”
Deyoung says the man in question had not contravened any of the shelter’s policies. She says the department has not provided any explanation for its request.
Deyoung says Northstar continued to provide shelter to the man after learning the province would cease its funding.
She says that as it awaits answers from the province, Northstar is focused on making arrangements for its clients and its staff once its funding runs out in December.
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