Tantramar listens to frontline voices as community works on its own housing solutions

Tantramar is hoping to come up with its own solutions to the community's housing crisis, and expects a recent public meeting with groups devoted to the issue will help. 

Dozens of residents in the rural municipality that comprises Sackville and Dorchester took part in discussions about housing at a public event also attended by New Brunswick Housing Minister David Hickey.

"Our feeling is that decisions are made in communities and not in Fredericton, and when the community of Tantramar comes together to have a conversation around what the future of housing looks like in their region, we need to be here," Hickey said.

He said he has started a tour of the province to meet with mayors, municipal councils and private and non-profit developers to get a better understanding of what needs to happen.

Ashley Leger of Sackville told fellow participants how she was once on the brink of homelessness herself but got lucky. 

The single mother said she knew what resources were available to her, but others might not know where to turn for help. She welcomed the community efforts to tackle the housing problem.

"I am a firm believer that you cannot wait for the province or the feds to deal with your community issues," said Leger, the executive director of the Cumberland Homelessness and Housing support Association.

"You have to stop pointing fingers at each other and you have to start taking ownership of that, and that's what Tantramar has done." 

Tantramar Mayor Andrew Black said one of the biggest challenges facing the Tantramar community is the lack of housing in general. There are barely any homes on the market, let alone affordable options, he said. 

The goal of this housing meeting was to get ideas to bring to council. Municipalities are facing pressure from the provincial and federal governments to do more about housing, he said. 

The Mayor's Roundtable on Housing was formed in August 2023 and has been meeting monthly ever since.

"The problem is that we end up talking in a bit of a bubble," Black said. "And so this is the result of that conversation — we want to capture information from groups that are talking about housing." 

Black said he was nervous before the public session but was pleasantly surprised by the attendance and engagement. 

"We're getting that real-life perspective, the stakeholders around the table were talking about their challenges and hopes for what they expect within their own organizations," he said.

"But to get the boots-on-the-ground stories and perspectives and maybe new ideas is why today is so important."

He said the data and ideas collected from the event will be made available to the public and used by the mayor's roundtable to create proposals for council.. 

Another participant was Rachelle Gariepy, the co-ordinator for Nursing Homes Without Walls for the Tantramar region. She said affordable housing options are necessary, but there also needs to be a focus on accessibility. 

"Housing also needs to be safe and accessible, long-lasting and conducive to our aging population," Gariepy said. "So housing needs to support diverse individuals with a wide range of needs, so those with chronic health conditions, with disabilities … that's all part of the equation." 

She said more than 50 local peoples have already expressed interest in the Nursing Homes Without Walls program, which helps make it possible for older adults to continue living in their own homes, since it started two months ago.

Hickey said he was excited to see the rural community take the initiative it did.

"Rural communities are thinking about housing more and more as it becomes, I argue, the most pressing issue." 

And all levels of government need to respond to the housing crisis with urgency, with rent subsidies for private developers and incentives for non-profit developers to get their projects started. 

"So we can deal with the supply crisis that we have and make sure that we're coming up with the right solutions to deal with affordability at the same time," he said.