Dear Suzy Hansen, 

I’m writing you this long overdue letter today to express my deep dismay and heartbreak at the failure of our province to provide housing to folks in need. 

I have watched as the numbers of Nova Scotians living in tents where I live, in Halifax, has increased ten-fold. I have felt heartbroken. I have failed to act in any meaningful way to help the situation. I feel helpless, actually. This is a crisis, and it is too large to be mitigated by individual action. This requires the apparatus of government, and it requires attention right now.

We are told time and again, when adversity visits our doorstep, that Nova Scotians are strong, that we rally together, that we pitch in and help each other. I have seen that in action, I know it to be true.

I cannot figure out, however, why that ethos doesn’t seem to extend to our duly elected government, which is also made up of Nova Scotians. 

I have copied all your colleagues here in the hope that you or one of them will be able to explain to me why we have people sleeping in tents. Families with children. Seniors. Folks with jobs. Folks who are hard to house, who are addicted. They all want what you want—to be happy, to be safe. They all deserve to be happy. They all deserve to be safe.

Why can the provincial government, made up of every person on this email list, not engage with this crisis with the same energy the government has brought to helping healthcare workers find housing on the south shore, or helping those displaced by wildfires and floods over the last several months?

What is the plan for the massive provincial surplus? How soon can some of that money be used to find, buy, or make housing for folks who are currently sleeping in tents?

I am not interested anymore in hearing about how Nova Scotians rise to a challenge. I am much more interested in seeing Nova Scotia’s government rise to the challenge. 

Thank you,

Stephanie Domet