Moncton homeless drop-in centre given notice to move

A drop-in centre for homeless people in Moncton will have to find a new location after receiving a notice from the landlord that the lease for the St. George Street location is being terminated early. 

Lisa Ryan, interim director for the YMCA's ReConnect program, says she believes the landlord was pressured by the community to evict the Greater Moncton ReConnect Street Intervention Program from the building. 

"I wasn't exactly shocked. I figured it was going to be coming at some point but I was surprised it happened so soon." 

Ryan said she doesn't think the community wanted to view homelessness. 

"At our location it was very in your face with the amount of people accessing our services. So there was a lot of community pressure to have us removed from the neighbourhood and different businesses that want us removed in reality." 

We're just moving a problem, we're not addressing it. So it's a bit frustrating and it's certainly disappointing but it's the reality of where we are.- Dave Theriault

The program offers outreach services to youth, adults and seniors who are homeless or at risk of being homeless. Workers are able to deliver immediate support where needed with things such as emergency food, clothing and hygiene products.

Ryan said the program also helps with longer-term aid by connecting individuals with community and/or government resources in the areas of housing, education, employment and counselling.

Neighbourhood impact

Dave Theriault, the vice-president of programs and community initiatives at the YMCA,  said it's tough for some people to deal with when they were seeing poverty and homelessness and it did impact the neighbourhood. 

"Our role is to help individuals get out of their situation and move towards a better life," he said. 

He admitted it could lead to problems such as increases in loitering, but they worked with the landlord to address it. He said the eviction notice is the result of three years of addressing those challenges. 

The landlord could not be reached for comment.

• New report paints grim picture of affordable housing in Moncton
• ​Homelessness won't be solved without more rent supplements
• Moncton works on efforts to help poor and homeless

Ryan said many of the complaints were a result of the increasing number of people that were accessing the services.

"The whole neighbourhood has the issue of poverty," she said. "We know that, it's been like that for 30 years. The fact of the matter is the issue is growing." 

Theriault agreed, adding that homelessness and poverty is not just something that can just be wiped out.

"We're just moving a problem, we're not addressing it," he said. "So it's a bit frustrating and it's certainly disappointing but it's the reality of where we are." 

Need growing

Despite the uncertainty, Ryan said they have learned resiliency from their clients and will work to find a new location and continue to make the program the best it can be. 

Ryan said the program will focus more on outreach, going to where the clients are rather than have them go to a centre. 

"While this is a dark cloud of bad news, it's also been a good time for us to sit back and take a look at the program and say what can we change to really impact our community as best as we can." 

In 2017, the drop-in centre had more than 5,700 visits. Of those 307 new clients accessed the services, a 20 per cent increase from 2016.  

Ryan said outreach staff conducted 2,416 street level interventions in 2017, a 50 per cent increase from
2016.

"The number of people on our streets looking to access services is rapidly growing...these are new faces we are encountering that don't know where they can go for help and we hope to be there for them."