More than 7,000 people waiting for public housing in N.S., but agency says vacancy rate improving
Half of people on the public housing waitlist are seniors
The head of the agency responsible for overseeing and managing public housing in Nova Scotia told a legislature committee Wednesday it is doing all it can to free up units and create new ones quickly, although thousands of people remain on a waitlist for a place to live.
Brian Ward, executive director of the Nova Scotia Provincial Housing Agency, said dedicated teams are handling turnovers when there are vacancies among the roughly 11,000 units provincewide. Those teams are also finding places for new units for the 7,020 people waiting for public housing, half of them seniors.
That figure is a slight improvement over the 7,709 waitlisted applicants across Nova Scotia as of August 2023. Documents obtained by CBC News through access-to-information laws showed applicants spent, on average, just over two years on the list. …[Continue Reading]