Tony Hall will tell you he was the first person helped by Neighbourhood Works Inc.
About 17 years ago, Hall lost his job. His family suffered a series of deaths and his wife and kids had left him. Unable to find another job, Hall said he chose drugs.
“It started off [as] a softer drug, and then as it progressed, it got into crystal meth,” he told The Courier. “There were short windows of opportunity that I needed to get sober, but St. Stephen never had nobody here. There [were] no services.”
Then he met outreach worker Amanda DeGruchy through Neighbourhood Works Inc (NWI) and the John Howard Society.
“She had been, you know, boots on the ground kind of deal, and found me half dead on the streets, and helped me by helping me enroll into a recovery program,” he said. “Drug addiction robbed me of everything.”
Hall believes education and compassion equal hope – the very thing DeGruchy gave him.
“I had a lot of regret and anger in me, and a lot of people would see that and just walk away,” he said. “We needed more Amanda’s.”
Hall was a part of the more than 85 people who attended a panel discussion hosted by Neighbourhood Works Inc (NWI).
There were seven panelists, NWI’s executive director Jim Stuart, NWI’s Director of Adult Services Amanda DeGruchy, Social Development Assistant Deputy Minister Brownyn Davis, NWI’s Youth Services Director Jessica Brown, harm reduction expert Diane Kerns, Sam Gullison and Stephanie Clarke from the Willow Centre.
Operating the homeless shelter on 9 Main Street is just one of the things NWI does – but it has become a community focal point.
Residents living and working near the shelter have raised concerns about safety and some of the activity surrounding shelter – including what they allege are drugs being sold and used.
They came to the council seeking the relocation of the shelter, further bylaw enforcement and for the council to create a task force that included all parties.
In late October, the council made a motion to both create a task force, but also to relocate the shelter “outside the municipalities boundaries,” which was eventually defeated in a vote of two-to-five.
On Nov. 2, a of seven experts to meet with the community to answer questions from the public about the shelter and the services offered by NWI. Jim Stuart, NWI’s executive director, said he felt the organization had been silent for too long.
“[It was] to give them an idea that the shelter is only about 80 per cent of what Neighborhood Works does so give them a round feeling of what we do,” he told The Courier.
Stuart said he was never informed about the desire to relocate the shelter, but has heard and understands the community’s concerns.
“Our standpoint is if there was a better location, if the province was willing to fund that location, and it’s going to cost a lot of dollars, then we’d be there in a second, right?”
Stuart said every spent moving shelters and temporary warming centres is money not being used to build housing desperately needed in communities like St. Stephen.
The provincial ministerial task force announced $7.4 million for temporary supportive housing, which Stuart said is the next step for his organization.
“We’re stuck in the shelter. There’s no real movement. So, we need that plan, and that’s going to be my push, besides housing, because evidence shows you’re only going to get further ahead, if you’ve got housing,” Stuart explained.
At the event, a rendering of a two-storey building with several units was on display. It was what the group intended for Happy Valley Road. The Department of Social Development did not respond to questions about when the plans were presented to the government nor whether it was brought forward to the Municipal District of St. Stephen (MDSS) council or through the consultation process.
However, it said a project was proposed for government-owned property “to support people affected by homelessness” on Happy Valley Road in early 2024.
“However, several environmental issues were then discovered in relation to the site, and some concerns from the community later arose. Those plans for the project were dismissed,” the statement to The Courier said.
The department was asked whether the bridge housing presented during the panel discussion would be part of the $7.4 million announced by the task force, and said: “a number of proposed supportive housing projects are being reviewed at this time, and we look forward to sharing more in the near future.”
It is a project Stuart hopes the provincial government may step up to support.
For Gullison, this panel was about being able to show people about the different perspectives around the table working to help in the homelessness crisis.
“We’re talking about all the incredible things that Neighbourhood Works does, and our involvement in different ways, not just as those neighbours and service providers next door,” she said.
She said the important thing is showing the level of collaboration happening among the service providers to help both the community at large, but also clients of the shelter.
“It’s all intertwined, and so having that collaboration and working together is really important to network and to try to address all of the needs within the community and services to those clients,” Gullison said.
Stephanie Clarke, a counsellor with The Willow Centre, shared deeply about her connection to NWI.
“I just believed I could never experience anything,” she said, speaking to The Courier. “And I so desperately wanted to believe that I could be something. But you, all you hear is ‘you’ll never change.’ ”
Clarke was part of the foster care system and said 38 per cent of kids in that system end up homeless.
“They 100 per cent have everything in them that they need to succeed,” she said. “They just need a community around them, the right opportunities, and for the community to know that these people aren’t defined by these experiences that they’re living in, and with the right support and re-humanizing, we can actually as a community, build people up out of homelessness.”
