News
The Northstar Homeless Shelter Will Lose
Provincial Funding Just Before Christmas
Northstar Shelter
(Source: Pictou County News)
(Source: Pictou County News)
As of right now the shelter is set to lose their provincial funding right before Christmas.
The timing of the decision, along with conflicting accounts of why it was made, is raising serious questions about Northstar’s future and what it could mean for the people who rely on its services.
According to The Chronicle Herald, Northstar Shelter and Support Services in New Glasgow says its provincial funding is being cut just one day after the shelter declined a request to remove a resident who had recently been released from corrections.
Northstar says the resident had been convicted of a crime involving a member of what the shelter describes as an “influential family in Pictou County.”
According to executive director Lisa Deyoung, the province asked Northstar to remove the resident from the shelter. After the organization declined, Deyoung says provincial officials notified Northstar the next day that its funding would be terminated in 90 days.
That allegation is at the centre of the controversy.
The province, however, says the funding decision was not connected to any individual resident or incident, and is instead part of a broader plan to create new supportive housing services in Pictou County and elsewhere.
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