Cumberland Homelessness & Housing Support Association

Cumberland Homelessness & Housing Support Association Our Mission: To assist the residents of Cumberland County experiencing homelessness

08/28/2026

Nova Scotia’s minister responsible for the province’s shelter system says communities need to stop expecting homeless shelters to solve problems that extend far beyond their walls.

Opportunities and Social Development Minister Susan Corkum-Greek says shelters such as Northstar Shelter and Support Services in New Glasgow are being asked to shoulder responsibility for issues involving homelessness, addiction, mental health, crime and community safety.

“We couldn't expect a standalone charity or nonprofit service to provide everything,” Corkum-Greek said in an interview Wednesday.

Her comments come after New Glasgow town council unanimously called on the province to close Northstar, arguing that the current shelter model is failing to address what it described as the underlying health and rehabilitation needs of people experiencing chronic homelessness and addiction.

But Corkum-Greek pushed back on the idea that the shelter should be held responsible for the behaviour of everyone who uses it.

“Those shelters cannot be absolutely responsible for the behaviours of the individuals who may reside there at night,” she said.

The minister said shelters have a role in maintaining safety, but argued the province and municipalities also need to be part of the response.

Northstar declined an interview with CBC but said in a statement that blaming a charity for broader problems facing the community is unfair. The organization said the factors contributing to homelessness are beyond the ability of any one shelter to address.

New Glasgow isn't the only Nova Scotia community wrestling with complaints surrounding shelters.

In Bridgewater, Cedar Place closed earlier this year after two years of operation amid community concerns. The province subsequently announced $2.2 million in funding for a new emergency shelter, The Landing, located farther from the downtown core.

Corkum-Greek pointed to that move as an example of how municipalities, the province and shelter operators can work together when concerns arise.

In Kentville, meanwhile, residents continue to raise concerns about the Open Arms Resource Centre & Society.

Amanda Riley, who lives in Kentville, said she believes her community has become less safe and that drug use and criminal activity have increased since the shelter opened more than a decade ago.

“It’s just gotten really out of hand,” she said.

Open Arms did not respond to CBC's requests for comment. Its executive director, Leanne Jennings, said in February that the organization has also had successes, including connecting roughly one-third of its shelter users with housing over the previous year.

Stephanie Watson, executive director of the Truro Housing Outreach Society, recently launched a network aimed at helping rural shelter operators share resources and tackle common problems.

Watson said she understands residents' concerns about safety, but stressed that people experiencing homelessness are also members of the community who need support.

“The folks that we work with are still people who need support and they need somebody in their corner and they need to be safe as well,” she said.

Northstar says it has no plans to close and intends to continue providing shelter and support while working with the province and municipality on community concerns.

“We are prepared to sit at the table. We are prepared to be part of the solution,” the shelter said.

Corkum-Greek said it remains too early to know exactly how the province will respond to New Glasgow's request, but provincial staff have already spoken with both the municipality and Northstar.

The dispute leaves the community facing a familiar question: who is ultimately responsible when a shelter becomes the focal point for much broader problems involving homelessness, addiction and public safety?

For now, the province says the answer can't simply be the shelter.

08/28/2026

We invite all residents and business owners in Amherst to participate in a survey to share what your experience has been like and to identify resources and supports that may be helpful.

Surveys will be open until 8:00 p.m. on Thursday September 10th.
Discussions surrounding survey results will be announced shortly after, within the following weeks of September.

𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗦𝘂𝗿𝘃𝗲𝘆: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd51bqsvT5W4-TSazPjYzWyCZMaQ3kk8rkj3KbUvu15ne-kaA/viewform

𝗕𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗦𝘂𝗿𝘃𝗲𝘆: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScp5WIeSdUkWYemWVoK8CPLgo3WBzUlOJUgGBB0I9PbRYQdYQ/viewform

Please share!
Thank you to everyone for taking the time to participate.

08/25/2026

What a Shelter Is. And What It Isn’t.

There seems to be some confusion about what an emergency shelter is. So, perhaps it is time we clear that up.

An emergency shelter is exactly what it sounds like. It is a place for someone to go when they do not have a safe place to sleep. We provide a bed, meals, basic necessities, safety, housing-focused case management and, in our case, supportive housing for people who need longer-term stability.

We help people navigate systems that are often extraordinarily difficult to navigate when you are also trying to survive being homeless. We help with housing applications, identification, transportation, appointments and connections to services. We advocate. We make referrals. We answer the phone. We sit beside people while they try to figure out what comes next.

But there are some things we need to say very clearly about what we are not.

We are not an addictions treatment centre.

We are not a detox facility.

We are not a mental health clinic.

We are not a recovery centre.

We are not a hospital.

We are not a correctional facility.

And our shelter support workers are not addictions counsellors, psychologists, nurses, social workers or mental health clinicians unless they individually happen to carry one of those qualifications. We do not receive funding to staff our shelter as though they are.

That distinction matters. Because somewhere along the way, we started expecting emergency shelters to somehow become the place where every other complicated social problem gets solved simply because the people experiencing those problems also happen to be homeless.

Someone is experiencing psychosis? Why isn’t the shelter doing more?

Someone is struggling with substance use? Why isn’t the shelter getting them sober?

Someone needs treatment? Why hasn’t the shelter gotten them into treatment?

Someone has complex behaviours related to trauma, mental illness, brain injury, substance use or decades of poverty? Why isn’t the shelter fixing that?

Because those are entire systems of care.

Homelessness does not magically transfer responsibility for someone’s health care, mental health care, addictions treatment or recovery to the organization providing them with an emergency bed.

We will absolutely help someone get connected to those services. We do it every single day. But connection and treatment are not the same thing. This is also why community partnership matters so much.

We want addictions services inside our doors. We want mental health professionals coming in. We want primary health care, recovery programming, employment services, income assistance, harm reduction, counselling, education and every other support our guests could benefit from meeting them where they already are.

Our doors are open to that. In fact, we need it. There are hours during the day when people are already here, in a place where they feel comfortable, with staff they trust. Instead of asking someone experiencing homelessness to navigate six different offices, transportation, appointment systems, eligibility requirements and waitlists, bring some of those services to them.

That is what integrated community care can look like. But we cannot manufacture those services ourselves with funding intended to operate an emergency shelter.

And I think our community needs to understand that distinction very quickly, because expectations matter. When we expect one small nonprofit organization to function simultaneously as a shelter, treatment centre, detox facility, mental health clinic, hospital, housing provider and social service agency, we are not holding the shelter to a higher standard.

We are quietly removing responsibility from everyone else.

Emergency shelters exist because someone needs somewhere safe to be tonight. Supportive housing exists because some people need more than a set of keys to remain successfully housed.

Treatment exists for a reason. Mental health services exist for a reason. Health care exists for a reason. Outreach exists for a reason. Income and employment supports exist for a reason. Housing systems exist for a reason.

These systems should intersect. They should cooperate. They should walk through each other’s doors and work together around the person who needs them. But they are not interchangeable.

So yes, hold us accountable for the work we are funded and mandated to do. Ask whether people are treated with dignity. Ask whether the building is safe. Ask whether we are helping people move toward housing. Ask whether public dollars are being used responsibly. Ask whether we are good neighbours and good community partners.

Those are fair questions, and we should be able to answer every one of them.

But stop asking an emergency shelter why it hasn’t solved addiction. Stop asking shelter workers why they haven’t cured mental illness. Stop expecting homelessness workers to compensate for every gap in health care, housing, treatment and social services simply because eventually the person who fell through all of those gaps landed at our door.

We will catch them. We will feed them. We will give them somewhere safe to sleep. We will advocate like hell for them. We will help them find their way through whatever systems are available, and sometimes through systems that seem almost deliberately impossible to navigate.

But we cannot be every system. And we were never supposed to be.

The staff wanted to show our guests that they support them and that they care!
08/21/2026

The staff wanted to show our guests that they support them and that they care!

A community member heard that our ice machine was broken, look what appeared today!! Thank you from the bottom of our he...
07/27/2026

A community member heard that our ice machine was broken, look what appeared today!! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts 💕

One of the hardest parts of this work isn’t the homelessness.It isn’t the addiction.It isn’t the mental illness.It isn’t...
07/26/2026

One of the hardest parts of this work isn’t the homelessness.

It isn’t the addiction.
It isn’t the mental illness.
It isn’t the trauma.

It’s watching rumours become facts simply because they’re repeated often enough.

Lately, there has been a lot of conversation about our shelter, our staff, and the work we do. That’s okay. Public organizations should be questioned. We should be transparent. We should be accountable. We receive public funding, and that means the public has every right to ask questions.

But there is a difference between asking questions and accepting assumptions as truth.

Our staff are accused of “doing nothing” when people are using drugs outside our fence.

The truth?

We cannot leave our property and intervene on private property. We are not police officers. We are not bylaw officers. We have no legal authority to remove people from someone else’s property. In fact, doing so would place our staff at risk and fall outside the scope of what our insurance and legislation allow us to do.

That isn’t avoiding responsibility. That is acting responsibly. We’ve also heard people say we claim to be a dry shelter while people under the influence are allowed inside.

Here’s what we actually are. We’re a damp shelter. That means drugs and alcohol are not permitted to be used inside our shelter. It also means we don’t leave someone outside to freeze because they’re intoxicated. If a person can safely access shelter without putting staff or other guests at risk, they are given a bed.

Because the alternative is sometimes death. That isn’t politics. That isn’t opinion. That’s the reality of emergency shelter work across this country.

We’ve also heard that providing harm reduction supplies means we’re encouraging addiction. If that were true, every emergency room, every pharmacy, every public health office, and every naloxone kit in this province would be encouraging addiction too.

Harm reduction doesn’t ask someone to stay addicted. It simply believes they deserve to stay alive long enough to recover.

You cannot attend treatment if you’ve died from an overdose. You cannot reunite with your children if you’ve died from an overdose. You cannot get housed, employed, sober, healthy, or hopeful if you’ve died from an overdose.

That’s why we do what we do. Not because it’s easy. Not because everyone agrees. Because people deserve another day.

If you ever have a question about how we operate, ask us. Don’t rely on rumours. Don’t rely on Facebook. Don’t rely on someone who has never worked in emergency shelter, supportive housing, addictions, or homelessness to explain how those systems work.

Ask the people who live it every single day. Our doors have never been closed to honest conversation.

Over the next several weeks, we’re going to begin sharing our policies, our procedures, our funding requirements, and the standards we operate under. Not because we’re responding to criticism, but because transparency shouldn’t begin when rumours start. It should have always been there. And maybe, just maybe, if we spent as much time learning about homelessness as we do talking about it, we’d spend less time arguing over opinions and more time building solutions.

Poverty is not a moral failing.Facts still matter, and every single person, whether they’re sleeping in a shelter, an apartment, or a house, deserves to be talked about with truth, not assumption.

07/24/2026

Love Us Loud

Every day our staff walk into work knowing someone will probably tell them they’re doing it wrong.

Not because they stole something.
Not because they hurt someone.
Not because they failed to care.

Because they fed someone. Because they handed someone a blanket. Because they gave someone naloxone. Because they believed another human being deserved one more chance to see tomorrow.

That’s become controversial.

If you’ve never worked in homelessness, it’s hard to explain what that feels like.

Imagine spending twelve hours trying to stop someone from dying. Imagine helping someone get their ID back after years without one. Imagine celebrating because someone finally slept indoors. Imagine talking someone through detox. Imagine convincing someone that they are still worthy of love after years of hearing they weren’t.

Then you go home, open Facebook, and discover hundreds of people who have never met you explaining why you’re the problem.

People who have never worked one shift. Never cleaned blood off a bathroom floor. Never sat beside someone while they cried because they lost custody of their children.
Never had to tell a mother her son overdosed.

Yet somehow they know exactly how your job should be done. That part doesn’t hurt because people disagree. Disagreement is healthy.

What hurts is watching strangers become experts on people they’ve never met while the people who know the work best stay silent.

Our staff are not paid the big bucks, hell, they aren’t even paid the medium bucks!!! Most of them make about $22 an hour.

$22 an hour to miss holidays. $22 an hour to work nights. $22 an hour to be screamed at by people in crisis and criticized by people who have never stepped through our doors. $22 an hour because they believe another person’s life is worth showing up for.

People often ask how burnout happens. It isn’t usually the work. The work is hard, but it is also beautiful. The burnout comes from feeling like you’re standing in the middle of a storm while the people who care quietly watch from inside.

Here’s what I know.

For every angry comment online, there are ten people who tell us privately they support the work. They send kind emails. They stop us in the grocery store. They whisper, “Don’t listen to them. They thank our staff. They tell us they couldn’t do what we do. Those moments matter more than you’ll ever know.

But here’s the thing. The criticism is public and the support is private. One is visible and the other disappears. That creates a world where good people begin to wonder if they’re alone. They’re not alone. We know they’re not.
Our community is better than that.

So this isn’t a request for people to argue online, It’s not about defending our organization every time someone disagrees, It’s about something much simpler.

If you believe people deserve food, say it. If you believe housing matters, say it. If you believe addiction deserves treatment instead of shame, say it. If you believe every human being has dignity whether they’re housed or unhoused, sober or using, successful or struggling, say it.

And if you know someone who does this work, tell people, share their posts, thank them publicly, write about them and stand beside them. Because the people who dedicate their lives to helping others should never feel like they’re standing alone.

Our spouses need to love us loudly, our parents need to love us loudly.

Our children. Our friends. Our neighbors. Our community partners. Our donors.

Not because we’re looking for applause, because compassion deserves company and the loudest voices should never belong only to anger.

If you believe in this work, don’t whisper it to us in private, say it where the world can hear you.

Love us loud.

CHHSA held a barbecue today. Many guests and staff enjoyed a great afternoon!
07/14/2026

CHHSA held a barbecue today. Many guests and staff enjoyed a great afternoon!

Maggie's Place Cumberland Collaborative Community Food Network has once again helped us serve healthy, nutritious meals ...
06/29/2026

Maggie's Place Cumberland Collaborative Community Food Network has once again helped us serve healthy, nutritious meals by supplying freshly grown vegetables from Wysmykal Farms!

Pictured here is Shelly CHHSA , Sarah Maggie's Place Cumberland & Sally CHHSA with a recent vegetable donation! Thank you!

05/14/2026

CHHSA is deeply saddened by the hate for a community partner organization being shared online. It is deeply troubling to see someone attacked for doing the kind of work that makes our communities healthier, safer, and more compassionate. Corey has dedicated herself to ensuring that people have access to care, information, and support without judgment. That work matters.

The Sexual Health Centre provides essential services and creates a space where people are treated with dignity, respect, and kindness. For many people, these services are not simply helpful; they are life-changing and life saving.

Hate is often loud, but it does not represent the values of our communities.

Today, I’m asking colleagues and community organizations, and anyone who believes in inclusion to help flood social media with messages of support. A few words of kindness can go a long way in reminding Corey and the entire team at the Sexual Health Centre that they are valued, appreciated, and supported.

Corey, thank you for continuing to show up for others, even when it is difficult. Your work matters, and there are far more people standing with you than against you.

We appreciate you. ❤️

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