Hello There!
If you are wondering who I am, let me introduce myself.
My name is Stacey Girard. I have been following the homelessness issue within Nova Scotia over the past year. And among other topics in Canada such as the issues surrounding harm reduction, safe supply, and various other social and community issues plaguing the country and province due to the lack of leadership from all levels of government.
As an eight part series, I am going to be writing about different parts of why what is happening now, is failing. And you guessed it, there is no reason to believe it will ever become a success either. Not unless there is a country wide plea and change that happens.
Now I know what you’re thinking, who am I really? I am a mom of 3. I have lived in Nova Scotia all but a few years of my life where I lived in Quebec for my husband’s employment. I grew up in Lower Sackville, a stay in Eastern Passage, and then Quebec, and back to HRM in our forever home. I have my Child and Youth Diploma as well as a few courses in Addictions through chosen classes. I worked with disabled adults in their homes for nearly 8 years before moving out of Province. Supporting their achievements and things they strive for daily. I am in the mentality of “Do with, Not for”. My class placement was in youth homes for at risk youth. My understandings of how things work in the social and at risk settings are easily explained because my education and lived in experience through employment. As well as simply keeping up to date with various courses through a career and gaining knowledge through multiple avenues.
You also may be wondering, why am I doing this? Simply, I am tired of never getting answers. As someone who personally has wrote over 70 emails to people in power such as Premier Tim Houston, Department of Community Services (DCS) Minister Brendan Maguire, City Councillors, etc, not to mention the completely unanswered emails from the media because they don’t want to touch the subjects and when they do they are so edited they don’t even have the main points that the communities have been screaming to the high heavens about. And before you get at me, I don’t blame the journalists. I blame the media itself and the likelihood they are being told what to print and share and what not to. A prime example of this is the fact media spoke with a parent about the discovery of a methadone bottle and a security company looking out for the community witnessed an individual inject themselves with a needle and throw it to the ground out from of a Shelter in Sackville, Nova Scotia. However the injecting themselves never made it public via the media even if there was a report made and given to the media.
While homelessness is not a new issue facing the globe, especially here in Canada it is an issue that has been fast forwarded due to the extremely short supply of housing that is affordable to the Canadian people and with the increased immigration that we literally have no where to house people already living here and are bringing in more and more people. It has become a much more trickier slope when advocates with 0 experience and or knowledge of these demographics of people are trying to help while only enabling greater issues. I’ll touch on those issues as well as time progresses and touching base on why these aren’t helping the problems itself but are basically a band-aid for the greater issues that again, nobody wants to address.
I’ll be asking community members and sharing their opinions anonymously as many have a fear of speaking out due to their careers, and even the name calling from advocates who don’t understand the scope of their enabling and are afraid to admit that what they are doing is in fact more harm. I myself have been called a bigot, to a NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard) for simply wanting safety for the community of tens of thousands of people and not accepting the citizens of Sackville be held hostage by a group of 50 or so individuals who have their share of issues among those being mental health and substance abuse.
I also am not going to be using all these fancy and “proper” words. I say this respectfully, I am a person. I want to talk and write to you just as I would if we were sharing a Tim Horton’s coffee or standing around the ice rink for practices. I don’t want to fill this with lingo that you aren’t quite sure what the words even mean. This issue is happening NOW and it needs to be known to everyone because even if it isn’t directly effecting you now, it will. In time this will be in your community, your back yard, your parks and playgrounds.
It’s also been suggested that because I’m so vocal about my opinions on said subjects this will be biased. To some extent, sure. I’ve been vocal about my opinions and viewpoint on the issues for the past year I’m not about to stop now. Only this time I’m also going to be doing research and breaking down thoughts and ideas so that you see where I’m coming from. Why the solution is obviously not simple, but also not the direction we are headed either. And at the end of the day, is every news outlet also biased in some extent. Aren’t they leaving out information or selectively reporting on things for their own or the government’s narrative. The only difference is that I won’t be sugar coating anything. It’s blunt. Raw. And true.
In this 8 part blog series there are going to be real photos from the community. From businesses from parks and more. The release schedule is as follows, and the best way to keep track and not miss is to either follow my Facebook here, Twitter, OR this very blog as they are the only ones being released this year.
– Tuesday, Sept 3rd/2024 – Introduction to who I am, and what this series is about, my experience with helping field etc.
– Tuesday, Sept 17th/2024 – Explaining what safe supply is, encampments, harm reduction.
– Tuesday, Oct 1st/2024 – Why safe supply is not the solution, encampments aren’t either and why detox and rehabs should be the focus.
– Tuesday, Oct 15th/2024 – The western Canada social experiment that has failed, and the rest of Canada is ignoring the failure.
– Tuesday, Oct 29th/2024 – Advocates being just as sick as the addicts themselves.
– Tuesday, Nov 12th/2024 – Dangers of Safe Supply and Encampments within communities.
– Tuesday, Nov 26th/2024 – Profiting from the poors – A look at the big bucks collected on behalf of the homeless, and where is it now.
– Tuesday, Dec 10th/2024 – Reputable places to donate, and how to help.
Buckle up. Prepare for some harsh truth bombs. And be ready to maybe see a different side of the Canada that we live in today and why this shouldn’t be accepted as our new normal.
Stacey J. Girard 