Council not the bad guys over funding decision

By Lethbridge Herald on March 15, 2023.

OUR OPINION

Back to the drawing board. 

And once again city council is the target of criticism by those who feel it should have supported administration’s request to allocate federal Reaching Home funding to Streets Alive at last week’s council meeting.

Council voted overwhelmingly to reject administration’s request, calling into question the Request for Quote process.

Why? Because six members of council didn’t get the answers they needed to support the request.

By rejecting the request, council is not a villain – it exercised jurisprudence, choosing not to spend federal monies until it could be assured that the outreach services could be delivered as required.

In initiative C 11.2 which council passed as part of its unanimous support for the 2023-26 budget, it clearly set out two streams of funding for outreach programs. One of those was Indigenous-specific.

Administration, however, melded the two streams into one without the knowledge or support of council and did not in its deal with Streets Alive specifically state an Indigenous component was required. The reason for this quite bluntly was as clear as mud if you watched council proceedings.

Council instead heard that such a component would be assured through contractual provisions and that the contract would be monitored. 

That wasn’t good enough for the majority of our elected officials.

Council specifically voted during budget deliberations to have two outreach teams – not one – and administration should have consulted with council before making its own decision to combine the two. 

There doesn’t seem to be any clear or justifiable reason for the overreach by administration.

There have been rumblings in the community for some time about City administration’s approach to dealing with the homeless situation and encampments, which surely have reached the ears of mayor and council. 

Has administration been working to help fulfill council’s vision to address homelessness and encampment issues in Lethbridge or are there different ideas on how to deal with them? If any philosophical conflict exists that conflict should have been recognized and resolved before now so action can be taken to provide needed outreach for those in the camps.

If homelessness wasn’t so often being politicized everywhere some positive accomplishments perhaps could be seen here and elsewhere.

Of course this whole discussion would be moot if the UCP ever decided to quit fighting windmills and actually put some effort into helping its municipalities deal with a complex problem. 

Funding supportive housing initiatives for the vulnerable – vulnerablities which certainly are at times self-inflicted – would go a long way to resolve the problems communities in the entire province are dealing with.

Yes, Green Acres Foundation is getting money to help seniors but they are only one segment of society which needs housing. And Lethbridge Housing is getting money from the province, both of which are much-needed and appreciated steps in the right direction.

 More is needed, though. And hopefully that help will come.

But Jason Kenney and now his successor Danielle Smith seem to have different priorities than helping municipalities combat the issues of addictions and homelessness, priorities which need to change if the UCP has any hopes of remaining in power because even their own supporters are getting fed up. 

Many will argue those with addictions need to help themselves and a strong argument can definitely made for that but the reality is not all will go to treatment, even when their lives are at risk. 

Not all will live within the rules needed to get a place in the supportive housing continuum. But we still can’t ignore their plight. 

Addictions have many victims including the families of those who struggle. 

And while individual families can – and often have to – abandon the addict to save their own lives, should society do that on a global scale? 

Not all homeless are addicts or dealers, which is a misconception that some feel unfairly compelled to perpetuate. Some people want help and we cannot ignore them.

Nobody in City administration should have ignored council’s directives and budget initiative C 11.2 showed clearly what one of those directives is. 

With LHA soon being empowered with the task of trying to end homelessness here, hopefully that agency will be able to work in unison with mayor and council to find real solutions moving forward. Hopefully, with a shared vision some real progress can be made.