When Encampment Living Becomes a Choice, The Story You Don’t Hear.

We often forget that with people in encampments comes the families behind them. Families that may not be as involved due to protecting their boundaries or having bridges burned. In many cases though, we never hear those stories. This is an individual who was once silenced because their story didn’t fit the narrative that “Nobody chooses to be homeless” when their own child did in fact choose that, they choose that over sobriety and rules.

When did your son end up in the encampment? 
Late summer / early fall 2023. They were no longer welcome around the encampments downtown and had heard that this encampment had access to electricity. The encampment was pretty sparsely occupied when they arrived – there were only a handful of tents at that time.


What was your initial thoughts about them living in an encampment, especially this particular one and how it looked from the street while driving by? 
The shock and horror that any parent would feel! I hoped that where this encampment was more isolated from the downtown amenities, it might lose it’s appeal quickly and so I kept going there, trying to convince my son to come home. I thought for sure that when the weather turned cold, they would give up and come home or agree to go to rehab. In early fall, the encampment didn’t look too bad. There were some tents, but not a lot of debris, and those already there seemed to keep it pretty tidy. That escalated very quickly though. Within a couple of months it was completely trashed with junk everywhere.

** To note, this particular encampment had an active Facebook group which seemingly welcomes any homeless individual from across the province. It was routinely seen the administrators of the group requesting people from different areas to help transport people from out of the HRM to this area.

What were some of your top concerns for them living there? 
Predators and their physical safety. Violence. Drugs. Death. Trafficking – I was concerned that others would pimp him out. 

*** I share some different dangers in encampments in this blog and how Predators have hidden among people truly down on their luck.

While living there What was your red flags with how things were being done, lack there of from a group of people seemingly controlling things? 
It was getting cold and my son had finally agreed to go to rehab – we took a tour and he was waiting for a spot to open. Then he refused to go because he’d decided that he wanted to stay in the camp ‘community’. It was a red flag for me that this group was considering it a ‘community’ rather than a temporary, emergency situation. If you’re an ‘outsider’ who finds ‘community’ – often you do not want to leave it! Another red flag was that they were videoing my son doing unboxings of Amazon wish list items that the public had bought for the camp, and posting the video on social media. When I asked them not to and explained why, they would not agree to stop. When I became aware that my son was tenting with a much older pervert, I was disappointed that the group didn’t tell me this. Instead, they tried to convince me that this older man was a great person. They said that he was sweet and kind and good for my son and 100% not a pervert. This was not true – he was abusing my son, and he was previously charged with child luring. This came out months later when he was arrested for beating another man with a bat and his name was published. Another issue – I notified the group leader that there was a drug dealer living there and preying on the camp. The group leader denied this and said that he was not a drug dealer. As it turned out, he was arrested for dealing a couple of months later. Also, there was no transparency as to what they were doing with donations.

*** For transparency sake, I’ve personally seen the screen shots of this encounter where there is denial from an administrator.

While here, even with the great deal of community donations and funding, did you see any progress in your sons situation? 
Not at all – quite the opposite – he got worse and worse the longer he was there. Bringing them propane and supplies made it too easy to stay put. There was no progress until the camp was closed and he went to a shelter. 


What kind of people are you met with when sharing your story? 
Nobody ‘official’ – everytime I saw my son in the news I contacted the media, and no one ever responded. I notice that the media never speaks to the parents or family of homeless people, unless they have died. I reached out to city councillors and MLAs and had a few responses, but could never speak to Max Chauvin, although I’m told that they passed along my emails to him. When I shared on my own Facebook page, I was attacked by various members of the group. When I shared on the group’s Facebook page, I was banned. The only place I could really share was on Ask Nova Scotia – Anything Goes! There, I encountered other parents in the same situation and one commonality was that we all seemed to wish that do-gooders would stop enabling our loved ones.


Fast forward to now, encampment closed nearly a year. Has your son progressed further without the encampment then with them? 
So much further! And the more that the camp group withdraws / disappears – the better they get. 


How is relationship now? 
Good – he spent a couple of days at home at Christmas without incident.


If you could say anything to goverment officials or city councillors, in regards to this situation what would that be ?
I’m disappointed that no one would speak out against the group. When they are featured on the news all the time, that tends to legitimize them to the public. The public feels comfortable donating to them. I would have liked a counter-voice, one with some authority, to stress that this group had no official status, were not social workers, were not backed by the city, etc. Encampments should not be allowed. Any encampment is going to develop a hierarchy of control and become a Lord of the Flies scene very quickly. In my opinion, and that of my son’s – the solution may be institutions. My son says that a lot of the people in these encampments just cannot care for themselves, either due to brain damage, mental illness, physical illness or deep addiction. I think it’s cruel to leave them to their own devices, and that housing them in supervised institutions would be far more humane and would cost far less over time. Nova Scotia should have, at minimum, a ‘Baker Act’ like the US – a 72-hour mental health hold. And the bar is far too high to have a person ‘committed’ – it’s almost impossible. 

*** I talk more about that here, People without proper education trying to help vulnerable individuals which in turn is creating enabling atmospheres where people aren’t going to choose the rough road to recovery but instead choose the self destruction that is easy.