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It shouldn't be Edmonton Transit's responsibility to look after the homeless. What might work better is for Edmonton Transit to report homeless persons to 211, so help could be dispatched.
 
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I've been told staff were informed that Bissell Centre's Community Drop-In space will close permanently on March 31st. They have been trying to make a go with limited staff, fundraising, and volunteers since the city ended the stop gap funding last March. I guess they have found that path unviable.

This means no day drop in at all until King Thunderbird opens, and then we will still only have one. This means more people hanging out in community spaces with nowhere to go.
 
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I originally wrote this for the Downtown Crime thread but felt it would be more appropriate here. I know its long, feel free to skip if you don’t want to read but I thought I would share some inside baseball about exactly how the social services system is cracking from my experience working in this sector.

Despite the branding, we do not have a Housing First model in Edmonton, we have a rapid rehousing project. A Housing First strategy would provide people with housing they can afford indefinitely. The province would never fund that, instead we get this part way measure. Our “Housing First” strategy provides a temporary (1 year) subsidy to help you afford housing, once that year is up you are on your own. After being housed for a year the vast majority of people are far from being ready to be employable and self sustaining, so they end up on Income Support.

Despite this, the program was working we did see significant reductions in the number of people on the street between 2010 and 2020. This was made possible by the affordability of the private housing market. The original plan identified that the project would only be sustainable in the long term if there was significant investment in social housing, which never happened.

And this is where one of the main issues lies: Alberta Works. Income Support in this province is pathetic. It provides $343 a month to pay for rent and an additional $469 for the rest of your expenses. In 2016 those numbers were $323 and $304. Back in 2016, with some hard work I could find a place for someone for about $500 a month. Now, it’s impossible to find something for less than $900. Which is more than their total budget. The rise in the average cost of a unit doesn’t tell the whole story, the bottom of the market has completely disappeared over the last 3 years.

Even getting that the limited support of Alberta Works has been made harder. In 2019 the UCP changed Alberta Works policy so that you could no longer access Alberta Works if you didn’t have housing, because that was “double dipping” with shelter funding. Now you get conditionally approved pending finding a place, then get a landlord to sign an “intent to rent”, submit that to Alberta works, and only then will they approve your supports. And in our experience, almost no landlords are willing to do that, why would they?!

The reason social disorder, homelessness, and public drug use is on the rise is because our social safety net has been devastated by a mix of government policies, housing price increases, and cuts to social services. This is only going to keep getting worse. The last homeless count had seen the numbers rise from just over 1000 in 2019 to over 5000 in 2024, I suspect that number will hit 10,000 by the end of the decade. In comparison during that same time, both Vancouver and Winnipeg saw a roughly 50% increase. Of course, the province is planning to defund the whole homeless count project because the data is unflattering.

There are plenty of other examples of ways the system is breaking down: the consequences of the divestment in social housing by Chretien/Klein, the end temporary physical labor for low skill/high conflict people, technology as a barrier to supports/employment, the increased addictiveness of drugs, specific policy cuts to supports, the upcoming impact of the loss of the Carbon Tax Rebate, the legacy of Children’s services and residential schools, etc. It’s pretty damn depressing in our sector right now. And it is a valid question what Society's responsibilities are to provide for those who struggle to provide for themselves, but regardless of what we choose those people exist in our community and we will experience the consequences of our choices.
 
SarcasticMarmot said:
I originally wrote this for the Downtown Crime thread but felt it would be more appropriate here. I know its long, feel free to skip if you don’t want to read but I thought I would share some inside baseball about exactly how the social services system is cracking from my experience working in this sector.

Despite the branding, we do not have a Housing First model in Edmonton, we have a rapid rehousing project. A Housing First strategy would provide people with housing they can afford indefinitely. The province would never fund that, instead we get this part way measure. Our “Housing First” strategy provides a temporary (1 year) subsidy to help you afford housing, once that year is up you are on your own. After being housed for a year the vast majority of people are far from being ready to be employable and self sustaining, so they end up on Income Support.

Despite this, the program was working we did see significant reductions in the number of people on the street between 2010 and 2020. This was made possible by the affordability of the private housing market. The original plan identified that the project would only be sustainable in the long term if there was significant investment in social housing, which never happened.

And this is where one of the main issues lies: Alberta Works. Income Support in this province is pathetic. It provides $343 a month to pay for rent and an additional $469 for the rest of your expenses. In 2016 those numbers were $323 and $304. Back in 2016, with some hard work I could find a place for someone for about $500 a month. Now, it’s impossible to find something for less than $900. Which is more than their total budget. The rise in the average cost of a unit doesn’t tell the whole story, the bottom of the market has completely disappeared over the last 3 years.

Even getting that the limited support of Alberta Works has been made harder. In 2019 the UCP changed Alberta Works policy so that you could no longer access Alberta Works if you didn’t have housing, because that was “double dipping” with shelter funding. Now you get conditionally approved pending finding a place, then get a landlord to sign an “intent to rent”, submit that to Alberta works, and only then will they approve your supports. And in our experience, almost no landlords are willing to do that, why would they?!

The reason social disorder, homelessness, and public drug use is on the rise is because our social safety net has been devastated by a mix of government policies, housing price increases, and cuts to social services. This is only going to keep getting worse. The last homeless count had seen the numbers rise from just over 1000 in 2019 to over 5000 in 2024, I suspect that number will hit 10,000 by the end of the decade. In comparison during that same time, both Vancouver and Winnipeg saw a roughly 50% increase. Of course, the province is planning to defund the whole homeless count project because the data is unflattering.

There are plenty of other examples of ways the system is breaking down: the consequences of the divestment in social housing by Chretien/Klein, the end temporary physical labor for low skill/high conflict people, technology as a barrier to supports/employment, the increased addictiveness of drugs, specific policy cuts to supports, the upcoming impact of the loss of the Carbon Tax Rebate, the legacy of Children’s services and residential schools, etc. It’s pretty damn depressing in our sector right now. And it is a valid question what Society's responsibilities are to provide for those who struggle to provide for themselves, but regardless of what we choose those people exist in our community and we will experience the consequences of our choices.
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Thank you, this should be required reading for a lot of people.
 
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SarcasticMarmot said:
I originally wrote this for the Downtown Crime thread but felt it would be more appropriate here. I know its long, feel free to skip if you don’t want to read but I thought I would share some inside baseball about exactly how the social services system is cracking from my experience working in this sector.

Despite the branding, we do not have a Housing First model in Edmonton, we have a rapid rehousing project. A Housing First strategy would provide people with housing they can afford indefinitely. The province would never fund that, instead we get this part way measure. Our “Housing First” strategy provides a temporary (1 year) subsidy to help you afford housing, once that year is up you are on your own. After being housed for a year the vast majority of people are far from being ready to be employable and self sustaining, so they end up on Income Support.

Despite this, the program was working we did see significant reductions in the number of people on the street between 2010 and 2020. This was made possible by the affordability of the private housing market. The original plan identified that the project would only be sustainable in the long term if there was significant investment in social housing, which never happened.

And this is where one of the main issues lies: Alberta Works. Income Support in this province is pathetic. It provides $343 a month to pay for rent and an additional $469 for the rest of your expenses. In 2016 those numbers were $323 and $304. Back in 2016, with some hard work I could find a place for someone for about $500 a month. Now, it’s impossible to find something for less than $900. Which is more than their total budget. The rise in the average cost of a unit doesn’t tell the whole story, the bottom of the market has completely disappeared over the last 3 years.

Even getting that the limited support of Alberta Works has been made harder. In 2019 the UCP changed Alberta Works policy so that you could no longer access Alberta Works if you didn’t have housing, because that was “double dipping” with shelter funding. Now you get conditionally approved pending finding a place, then get a landlord to sign an “intent to rent”, submit that to Alberta works, and only then will they approve your supports. And in our experience, almost no landlords are willing to do that, why would they?!

The reason social disorder, homelessness, and public drug use is on the rise is because our social safety net has been devastated by a mix of government policies, housing price increases, and cuts to social services. This is only going to keep getting worse. The last homeless count had seen the numbers rise from just over 1000 in 2019 to over 5000 in 2024, I suspect that number will hit 10,000 by the end of the decade. In comparison during that same time, both Vancouver and Winnipeg saw a roughly 50% increase. Of course, the province is planning to defund the whole homeless count project because the data is unflattering.

There are plenty of other examples of ways the system is breaking down: the consequences of the divestment in social housing by Chretien/Klein, the end temporary physical labor for low skill/high conflict people, technology as a barrier to supports/employment, the increased addictiveness of drugs, specific policy cuts to supports, the upcoming impact of the loss of the Carbon Tax Rebate, the legacy of Children’s services and residential schools, etc. It’s pretty damn depressing in our sector right now. And it is a valid question what Society's responsibilities are to provide for those who struggle to provide for themselves, but regardless of what we choose those people exist in our community and we will experience the consequences of our choices.
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Given a magic wand, what would be some specific asks to tackle this? It seems like removing the "intent to rent" requirement and allowing Alberta Works access based on financial standing and not housing status would make a dent.
 
I think it’s sad to see the government stereotype homelessness as addicts or criminals. Sure some of them fall into that category, but how many people have been a paycheque away from ending up on the street? What about ex-military or people on disability? What’s the turnover rate of the homeless population?
 
The_Cat said:
I think it’s sad to see the government stereotype homelessness as addicts or criminals. Sure some of them fall into that category, but how many people have been a paycheque away from ending up on the street? What about ex-military or people on disability? What’s the turnover rate of the homeless population?
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"Turnover rate" isn't really measurable because of how different studies define "being back on your feet", but there are studies which can provide numbers if you look. The 2022 Everyone Counts survey from the GoC has some good info.
  • Single parents and couples with dependants represented 5% of respondents.
  • Youth comprised the highest proportion (26%) of 2SLGBTQI+ responses.
  • Indigenous respondents remain overrepresented among those experiencing homelessness, representing 31% of respondents.
  • Veterans are overrepresented among those experiencing homelessness, representing just under 5% of respondents.

1757364347021.png

1757364368239.png
 
policyenthusiast said:
Given a magic wand, what would be some specific asks to tackle this? It seems like removing the "intent to rent" requirement and allowing Alberta Works access based on financial standing and not housing status would make a dent.
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Its a hard question I've spent alot of time mulling about. The solutions are long term, specifically in investing in subsidized (not "affordable") housing like Civida/Right at Home/HomeEd. We don't have accurate numbers on the number of subsidized housing units but its been pretty much stagnant since we stopped building welfare rate housing to balance the budgets in 1993/94. The waitlists are now bordering on 30,000-40,000 families. We need investment with a capital B, not the piddly crap we have seen so far. I am pleased with the city's focus on pushing forward the supportive transitional housing throughout the city, that will make a dent in the most difficult cases. But it doesn't change the fact the system is spitting people out onto the streets faster than we can house them.

In the short term, ending the "intent to rent" requirement would be a first step in making it easier get people housed. We also need the rental portion of Alberta Works increased to something even remotely feasible, my suggestion is pegging it to a market measure of the bottom 10% of housing stock. That would make finding and securing a place atleast doable.

Edit: I would add we desperately need to do the work to get rid of the "Welfare Wall", the point around 20k a year where the loss in supports (Healthcare supports, childcare supports, housing supports) all fall off a cliff much faster than employment income can compensate for. Expand the eligibility of those supports so they last for a long time after people leave income support (especially because early employment after income support tends to be sporadic and tenuous) and redesign the good idea/bad execution of the Canada Worker's Benefit.
 
TAS said:
Interesting development in Montreal - I wonder how this will turn out. Class action lawsuit against province, city and shelters.

Click to expand...

And today as well, group in McCauley.

"The president of the Ukrainian National Federation branch located just north of downtown said the social disorder he is seeing in the area cannot continue."

www.ctvnews.ca

‘We can’t live like this’: Ukrainian organization in McCauley neighbourhood fed up with public disorder

The president of the Ukrainian National Federation branch located just north of downtown said the social disorder he is seeing in the area cannot continue.
www.ctvnews.ca www.ctvnews.ca
 
TAS said:
Interesting development in Montreal - I wonder how this will turn out. Class action lawsuit against province, city and shelters.

Click to expand...
More from Montreal:
To avoid becoming ‘Vancouver,’ Montreal’s next mayor must ensure safety downtown: business group


(For what it's worth, I think the article does a good job at pointing out that Castanheira is just straight-up wrong on certain counts, including the implication that Projet Montréal has in any way moved to 'defund the police.' Rather annoying that we're having the exact same discussion here!)
 
TAS said:
And today as well, group in McCauley.

"The president of the Ukrainian National Federation branch located just north of downtown said the social disorder he is seeing in the area cannot continue."

www.ctvnews.ca

‘We can’t live like this’: Ukrainian organization in McCauley neighbourhood fed up with public disorder

The president of the Ukrainian National Federation branch located just north of downtown said the social disorder he is seeing in the area cannot continue.
www.ctvnews.ca www.ctvnews.ca
Click to expand...
They were camping on top of the roof??? Of a private facility? Christ.

I've been to numerous events at that Ukrainian Center in my life. Great hall and a lot of memories. I've always seen homeless people there but this is beyond anything I've ever seen.

Pathetic it's getting THAT bad there.
 
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