P.E.I. working with Summerside to find housing solutions 'before any tent encampments pop up,' minister says

P.E.I.'s housing minister says his department is taking a closer look at how to address housing issues in Summerside. 

Rob Lantz made the comments while answering questions from Liberal MLA Gord McNeilly in the legislature on Thursday. 

McNeilly said he's concerned about a number of recent evictions in the Summerside area involving people who were living at the Summerside Motel. 

The province had been paying for their accommodations, using the motel as an emergency shelter.

The government did not provide any answers as to why they were evicted at the legislature. But McNeilly wanted to know what's happened to those people and, more broadly, about the issue of housing insecurity in Summerside. 

"Residents wanted me to ask, where is the support?" he said. "They were promised mobile units. Where is the plan and where are the units for that area?"

Mobile units an option

There was some confusion last fall when the previous housing minister announced "modular housing units" for Summerside, right when the mobile emergency shelter was being set up in Charlottetown.

The Summerside units were actually pre-fabricated homes — not an emergency shelter like what's on Park Street.

On Thursday, Lantz said that kind of shelter is now a possibility for Summerside.

He said he's been in talks with the city's mayor, Dan Kutcher. 

"[The mayor] mentioned they're getting concerned that the situation with unhoused people ... might be escalating," he said.

"We've got to get a handle on the problem and work proactively together, find solutions that work for the City of Summerside. And these are just preliminary discussions, but we want to get ahead of it before summer season, before any tent encampments might pop up."

Motels aren't working, mayor says

Lantz said members from his department are gathering information and will present some options on how to move forward. 

He said the city probably needs a bit more capacity for a shelter. 

"We'll look to the City of Summerside to determine what their needs are and we're going to be a partner with them in this process to get ahead of the problem there, make sure that we've got appropriate capacity for emergency shelters," he said. 

Kutcher told CBC the city needs more emergency shelter space along with wraparound supports for mental health and addiction — something like what Charlottetown has with Park Street and the Outreach Centre.

The mayor said the province's approach using motels in Summerside isn't working because there's no support for residents, and that people are living in tents, couch surfing and living under bridges.

Kutcher said the city needs more emergency shelter space as soon as possible.