‘Lack of facilities for permanent supportive housing,’ says Thomsen
By Tim Kalinowski on May 21, 2021.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDtkalinowski@lethbridgeherald.com
City of Lethbridge manager of Community Social Development Martin Thomsen gave members of the Cultural and Social Standing Policy Committee of city council on Thursday a grim assessment of the severe challenges facing local organizations in establishing new permanent supportive housing facilities in the community.
“The problem has been facilities,” Thomsen explained. “The facilities we intended to house the individuals in- unfortunately every one of them has not come to fruition. In addition, COVID has created some problems in that we were shifting folks around to create additional capacity.
“That is the bleeding of the neck issue in our community. It is a lack of facilities for permanent supportive housing.”
Thomsen underscored this problem by giving the example of what the YWCA has gone through in the past year in trying to get a new expanded facility up and running in the city.
“Originally the YWCA was going to look at purchasing the old Red Crow College, and converting it to a men’s 24-unit facility,” he explained. “Their board gave them the approval to do that last October, and that fell through due to some planning and zoning issues. And then they shifted gears a bit, and were looking at potentially purchasing the Days Inn using the federal government Rapid Housing Initiative capital dollars, and, unfortunately, that has fallen through.
“And then the third option was they were going to shift beds around within the YWCA building, but have been unable to do that because of the COVID issue and having to maintain social distancing. They were not able to convert rooms according to the original plan.”
Thomsen said other problems have held up the provincial government’s promised 42-bed permanent supportive housing facility in the city.
“Unfortunately the ($11 million) funding that was announced three years ago has not come to fruition,” Thomsen explained to SPC members. “And even if that project gets a shovel in the ground tomorrow, it’s still going to be at least a year until that facility is built.”
Thomsen confirmed the province had purchased a lot for the new facility and had approved funding to go ahead with the functional design aspect of the facility, but the project had hit some unforeseen snags and has essentially stalled.
“During that three-year time period, of course COVID has hit,” he explained. “And the cost of the facility has increased by about $2.5 million. It’s because of two key reasons: One, it’s lumber prices– they have dramatically increased the price of the facility. And in 2020, the province changed a lot of the building codes, which have increased the cost by a bit of money. So, they are short roughly $2.5 million right now.”
Thomsen said he and Community Services manager Mike Fox were scheduled to meet with the province to help determine a way forward for the much-needed facility.
In the meantime, Thomsen confirmed the City had set up a new Social Services Integration Committee, which includes diverse stakeholders from both the social services and business community, to tackle the problem of where and how to get these permanent supportive housing facilities set up in Lethbridge.
“Until we get a larger facility or a facility we can move these folks to, it’s not necessarily the service provider that is the issue,” he stated. “It’s the facility.”
The Cultural and Social Standing Policy Committee received Thomsen’s report for information, and unanimously recommended city council reallocate existing supportive housing dollars up to $447,748 for the Family Ties Association to continue to fund temporary beds at River House in 2021-2022 with the hope that a more permanent facility can be found in the next year.
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This is clearly the personal agendas of the writer and a few bureaucrats in city hall. Get your collective heads out of the sand! The people living on the street are doing so by their own choice. They don’t want help. Nor does thr taxpayer want to keep throwing money at them, only to satisfy your personal agendas and justify your jobs.
I often wonder if these people, these experts even get out of their chairs and see what is happening our streets, talk to the police, the EMS and walk around at night to see really what is happening.
Many on the streets have homes/residences, while others who do not, will not obey the rules and the responsibities of respecting the homes/residences the taxpayers have provided for them through social services. Many just want to be out on the streets, hanging with the gang, doing their drugs or sharing their bottle of vodka with their friends, enjoying the fellowship of others.
How many have been evicted that were given a roof over their heads? How many have caused landlords great expense and made them bitter? How many of these are frequent flyers in jail, paying for the crimes they committed, just do you back out on the streets and continue committing them?
We have allowed this to explode on our streets since 2015, and it would be much worse if the SCS was still operating! I know many of the people that we saw on TV news that were shown at Galt Gardens sleeping there, some of them were known drug dealers who want to be there. I won’t be more specific since one in particular stands out and would be easily recognized if I described her.
The problems all point to the addictions and the cause of the addictions! It also points to a lifestyle that created the issues over a life time!
We have allowed this by not acting on it as it grew, and then in desperation, jumping for answers, employing programs that have failed in BC, for many years.
There are some that appreciate housing and respect the gift, but that is a very small percent, less than 10% I would guess!
We are facing large scale budget cuts due to the high debt we have accrued from COVID and better get our act together fast.
We need support for businesses, support for jobs and definitely we need treatment for addictions that works, with high success rates!
We need to stop allowing the vagrants to take over our streets, committing crimes to support their addictions and costing the community who support all of the groups working to help those in need! Donations alone are massive, but taxpayer money also is in the millions to pay for groups such as D.O.T., the Watch, the Safe Community Center which is responsible for cleaning up the mess left on our streets, and others.
The decision needs to be made, because we are facing cutbacks in the decade that will slash many of the services that average citizen now enjoys. We need leadership!
Just a thought . . . what is the cause that presents the need for the supportive housing?
Should we not be focusing on what has caused this need?
We must be very careful we do not end up in the same position that the greater Vancouver DTES finds itself in, with a population of around 20,000, they have been pouring over $360 million per year (billions over 17 years) into 300 social and housing services, with another 2,300 on the streets in 2019. It is a bottomless money pit . . . a complete failure.
It attracts people from across Canada who come because of all the services they provide, allowing them better supports so they can put more into their addictions.
READ: https://vancouver.ca/files/cov/vancouver-homeless-count-2019-final-report.pdf
Some exerpts:
“Place of Residence Prior to Vancouver”
Table 13 shows where respondents were living before their arrival in Vancouver. Sixteen percent (16%) had been living elsewhere in Metro Vancouver; 31% elsewhere in British Columbia, 44% elsewhere in Canada outside of British Columbia, and 9% outside of Canada.
I have always stated, “Build it and they will come” . . . Governments should be focused on the cause of the problem, instead of pouring money into areas that don’t even put a band-aid on the problems.
Reports state that addicts/homeless that are ‘revolving door’ users of the justice system, penal system, social services and healthcare systems can cost up to $6 million per year to the taxpayers . . . that is per person and the average homeless/addict in Vancouver costs up to $1 million per year.
BC failed to pump millions into effective treatment programs for addictions and mental health. Now they are paying the price and still coming up with ill-fated plans such as legalizing the very drug that got them into the mess in 2003 . . . opioids . . . that is their answer!
Let’s not be making the same mistakes BC continues to make!!! It their plan worked, as many state in the media . . . please tell why, since 2003, all of the negative stats have increased annually: numbers of addicts, homeless, fatal overdoses, crime.
Note: Lethbridge has seen decreased fatal overdoses in the past 9 months since the infamous party palace, the SCS was thankfully shut down. Let’s continue the trend by resolving the problems we see on our streets with effective programs treat the addicts and mentally ill and give them a chance in our society.
Lots of facilities all ready- duplication of services. Lack of ordination ,lots of money involved- free for all. Just like the SCS.
Free for all except the tax payers…
So, what was important before addicted-homeless came to our city and Covid? Both are Draining any possible money that would have been used prior to these two events. Stop the housing. Enough is enough. Worst thing you can Ever do for an addict is give them All their material needs. Like Neil Young says ‘every junkie is like a setting sun’. Until they get that, they will never surrender and say, ‘I need help’. Why should they? Like someone said… we have the most privileged addicted homeless that has ever been. By us trying to ‘save’ them, we are simply assisting them to continue live hell on earth, until their end of day. There are people who Definitely need to some Al-Anon work!