Editorial

April 24 2024

Common sense solutions to food and housing needs

Access to decent food and housing remains out of reach for too many Canadians. The lack of these basic needs can mean the difference between moving forward and stagnation and, in some cases, life and death. But skyrocketed costs and systemic barriers often keep them out of reach. People from all backgrounds are struggling to keep groceries on their shelves and a roof over their heads.

Two recently announced projects in Guysborough County – funded by the provincial government and delivered by community organizations – are attempting to meet these challenges head on here at home.

As Alec Bruce writes this week, the Mulgrave and Area Medical Centre (MAMC) will use the $150,000 grant it just received from the Department of Communities, Culture, Tourism, and Heritage (CCTH) to bolster its food pantry for people in need from that area and neighbouring parts of Guysborough County.

Meanwhile, Bruce also reports this week that the Housing Trust of Nova Scotia plans to open eight new affordable homes in Guysborough in December – with more planned for Canso next year – on land effectively donated to it by the Municipality of the District of Guysborough (MODG). These modern, modular, rental townhouses – built with money from the provincial Housing for Healthcare Initiative – will be available initially to doctors, nurses and other heathcare workers. But as HTNS Executive Director Angela Bishop says, “We wouldn’t hold a unit vacant for six months waiting for a healthcare worker ... The only real requirement ... is that they are rented.”

That’s the kind of bold, flexible, innovative thinking we need to address these systemic quandaries. It’s bold because it cuts through red tape and mobilizes solutions to immediate problems. It’s innovative because it darts around the policy quicksand that might otherwise drag the discussion into endless ruminations on who’s responsible. It’s also encouragingly quick. The HTNS plan started last fall; the MAMC application (along with 122 similar ones across Nova Scotia) was approved earlier this month.

Too often, food and housing issues seem too big to wrestle. The problems seem too diffuse, too pervasive for anyone to solve. We sometimes forget that these are, in many ways, local issues calling for local solutions - if we have the will, the wherewithal and the good sense to tackle them.

MAMC grabbed the initiative during the worst of the COVID pandemic, delivering 10,000 frozen meals over eight months to vulnerable people in Mulgrave and other communities in the county. “It was during this time that we we felt that a food pantry might be beneficial to serve the immediate community needs,” says the charitable organization’s chairperson, Shaunna Scott. Now, this $150,000 boost from CCTH will vastly enhance good works that have already hit the ground running, improving their chances of making durable change.

With similar foresight, The HTNS worked closely with MODG to craft its housing projects in Guysborough according to local needs. Now, these houses will not only serve as recruitment tools for healthcare professionals but may also be available to others who want to live and work in this part of Nova Scotia.

These may be one-time projects, but they demonstrate that governments and communities can work together to address seemingly intractable problems, like the high costs of housing and food, effectively and sensibly. And they point us in the right direction for the solutions we’ll need in the future.