On July 8th the Department of Opportunities and Development (DOSD) evacuated all staff at both Out of the Cold facilities in the HRM with 30 minutes of notice. The province began to spin a narrative of what had taken place and why, beginning with Suzanne Ley’s comments the following day.
On July 15th, the day that workers held a rally and press conference, the CBC published a damning piece on Out of The Cold and us as workers at 6 am (Unsanitary conditions, rooms without locks among ‘failures’ at shelter sites, says official). It featured a long list of accusations from the province with no opportunity for workers to respond to the allegations being made prior to publication.
The photos and lack of context
Photos of one of the rooms began circulating, starting with the piece on the CBC website. They are meant to shock the public by misrepresenting the living conditions residents had at OTC. No context was provided. And it was cherry-picked – most rooms looked nothing like that.
We housed some people with intense addiction issues, who have been chronically homeless and have hoarding tendencies. Hoarding issues arise because residents do not want to lose their precious few possessions … yet again.
A room can go from relatively tidy to the conditions shown in the photos in a matter of minutes. Residents at OTC live independently and are not surveilled, although staff conducted hourly walk-throughs and daily routine check-ins. We did not discharge people on the basis of their hoarding habits. The work we do as housing support workers is complex, interpersonal and based on trust. Overzealous enforcement can lead to dysregulation for residents which often leads to more negative outcomes.
Government bureaucrats often have limited experience directly engaging in the dynamics of person-centered, non-punitive supportive housing. A housing-first policy means that some people who do not conform to mainstream ideas of cleanliness remain housed without being shamed.
Can you see us? Can you hear us?
At our public rally last week, where about 200 supporters gathered (not “several dozen” as noted by the CBC article), a CBC reporter asked me and a colleague about the state of the rooms in the DOSD-provided photos. We provided nuanced responses; none of which were quoted.
Ley’s DOSD has accused OTC staff of being negligent. The CBC’s reporting seems to have accepted it as fact. Allegations were raised of staff acting as health barriers, which I see as tantamount to slander. This is a complete fabrication without any evidence to back it up. We cared deeply for the residents and their health goals. My colleagues and I did everything we could within the parameters and funding we were provided.
Hours after the rally, the CTV quoted Ley who narrowly caught herself from misstating: “We couldn’t have staff – Sorry. – We couldn’t have leadership at OTC find out about the transition in advance.”
A media failure
Reporters have failed to ask the significant question of why? Why was it so crucial for DOSD to prevent management at OTC from knowing about the transition? Even if it was important for the management at OTC to be in the dark throughout this transition, then why did DOSD not follow a due process of awarding the contract in the interim until a proper public tendering process took place?
Something here is amiss. Workers have been treated unfairly and callously, and residents like pawns – nothing more than collateral damage. We are going to get to the bottom of it
Shame on the Houston government for throwing us under the bus – and shame on the media who refused to let us tell our story and failed to dig deeper.
Carlo Cininni was a Resident Support Worker at the Dartmouth site and had been at OTC since June 2023. He is also a part-time journalist, having graduated from the University of King’s College Journalism program.
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