Saint John tiny-home community one step closer

A plan to establish a tiny-home community of 75 to 80 homes in east Saint John has the support of the city's planning advisory committee.

The Sunnyside Tiny Home Community project, announced in September, is led by United Way Maritimes, a non-profit organization that also runs a tiny-home community in Sackville.

The planning committee voted in favour of rezoning a patch of forested hill, between Rothesay Avenue and Westmorland Road, from park and utility service to mini-home park residential to allow for the development.

The site is near the Fernhill Cemetery and the East Point shopping area. 

The proposal will come before common council on Feb. 10 for a public hearing, when council members will vote on next steps. 

Alexya Heelis, executive director of the United Way for central and southwestern New Brunswick, and Sue LaPierre, executive director of the United Way mainland Nova Scotia, presented the proposal to the committee. 

Heelis said the project will house people from the city's by-names list, a real-time list of all individuals known to be experiencing homelessness. 

The area will be fenced off and have wraparound services such as nurses and social workers, with rents being capped at 30 per cent of a resident's income. 

"This will be a well-managed community. It's not a shelter or an encampment — it is permanent supportive housing," Heelis said.

"Participation in wrap-around support is a condition of being a tenant in Sunnyside," she said.

"There will be rules about what people can do and how people are meant to act in the public spaces. No illegal activity can be happening. You can't be selling drugs out of your tiny home." 

Yeva Mattson, city community planner, said the city received 19 letters from the community with 11 in support of the project, three neutral and five against, with two of the opposition letters having multiple signatures. 

Concerns about location, safety

Andrea St Pierre, who lives and owns a business in the area, sent a letter to the city with 16 resident signatures and spoke against the proposal.

She said her heart goes out to people who are suffering but she is concerned about safety. She said she and others have seen an uptick in breaking and entering.
 
"I've had my own office, where I've had a homeless person come into my office," St Pierre said.

"Now I have to lock my doors if I'm alone. So it's pretty scary. And this is without having, say 150 people, residents in these new tiny homes."

Elaine Daley, representing Fernhill Cemetery and the Shaarei Zedek Jewish cemetery near the site also spoke at the committee meeting Tuesday. She said they hope to work with United Way to address concerns.

"It's very important that no damage is done to the cemetery because it would be extremely bad press for everybody concerned — the city, the community —- to have the sacred ground that we've been entrusted to manage and maintain be harmed in any way," she said.

Business consultant John Wheatley spoke on behalf of multiple commercial businesses in the area, such as Leon's Furniture and businesses in the East Point shopping area. He said businesses are concerned about security and how the project may affect their operating costs.

Wheatley specified the businesses are not against the project, but they are against the location.

Non-profits, businesses rallied support

Several organizations and some individuals spoke in favour of the proposal including Saint John Energy, Fresh Start services and the city's chamber of commerce.

"This is not going to solve the mental challenges that a lot of people are talking about," Dave Grebenc, of the innovation- focused non-profit IF-ADAPT.

"It's not going to deal with the person that is massively addicted but it is going to hit a significant portion of the people that are either [homeless] or on the verge, which is a critical first step, and we could not see a better project to put our money behind." 

Grebenc also criticized some of the opposing sentiments

"I think someone said it earlier, you could pick a location and everyone's going to have the issue of 'not in my backyard'." he said.

"Well, it has to be in someone's backyard … in this particular location, as I looked at it, is a location deemed residential. These are homes. The size is the only difference." 

Paul Atkinson, a local emergency physician, said he has seen the effect of homelessness on the health-care system. 

"Homelessness significantly impacts emergency departments and hospitals across Canada, leading to increased health-care utilization," he said.

He endorsed the project, saying "it's essential for the health of our community and for the sustainability of our health-care system."