Funding being sought for overnight comfort centre
By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on December 13, 2022.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com
City council today will be asked to provide $325,670 in funding to Streets Alive for the operation of an overnight comfort centre.
Takara Motz, general manager of Community Social Development, says in her report to council that the Lethbridge Shelter and Stabilization Centre consistently has occupancy pressures during extreme winter weather and no comfort centres currently exist that offer overnight support.
Streets Alive has presented CSD with a proposal calling for the expansion of a comfort centre with public access 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Operations were set to start on Dec. 1 and run until March 31.
The entirety of the budget, says the report, is approved under municipal funds. Of the funding, $225,670 would come from the federal Reaching Home portfolio which would reduce the amount of municipal funding needed for the project with the other $100,000 coming from taxation.
Streets Alive’s proposal has a tiered structure for the overnight comfort centre. Its operation will require increased staffing, security personnel and supplies for basic needs.
In a separate matter, Motz will also be asking council to allocate funding from the Affordable and Social Housing Capital Grant to the Aboriginal Housing Society for the Legacy Ridge housing project.
A recommendation in a report being presented by Motz asks council to approve the allocation of $1.5 million of Affordable and Social Housing Capital Grant funding from the 2022-31 D-32 Affordable Housing CIP project to the Aboriginal Housing Society for the project.
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11-10
More money from the embattled Lethbridge taxpayer?….
ah come on, what’s another 325,000 (sarc)
Surely the irony of raiding a fund named ” Reaching Home” will not be lost on anyone.
Another 1/4 million here, 1.5 million there , and it will all be better right?
If this is such a brilliant idea I’m sure Streets Alive [ another ironic moniker ] would have no problem securing Churches to fund this project.
Are they not themselves a church. Streets Alive Mission is the moniker I believe.
They are a registered charity and having originated in part from a pastor and his wife I am sure have some religious connection, but they have for years functioned more as a social service agency. I have not seen any claim of affiliation with any broader recognized religious group other than “Christian” .
Why do we not see any funding from the Blackfoot Confederacy? Instead we pay to support them. Why?
Today in council another indigenous funding project by the Lethbridge taxpayers is going to be approved for an indigenous housing project on the northside, in which this spring we gave them $300,000 and today will be another $1.5 million of our local tax dollars.
Why are we paying? Is this not the federal government’s area, or the Blackfoot Conferation?
To be positive, Streets Alive has been serving this community for several decades and has done some great work in our city that many are not aware of. They are local, they are long term residents who operated the first shelter on the 300 block of 1st avenue south where ReMax now stands.
They have a lot of experience dealing with these issues, including half-way houses and other social services. I support Streets Alive because of this. Have you ever heard the term ‘buy local’? In this case we should be supporting local.
Since they opened 24/7 there are less camping out overnight at the Park N Ride terminal, where they leave little “presents” on the ground, write graffiti on the walls, damage property and even break in and cause damage and huge mess.
This is temporary! We need to stop this and start enforcing the vangrancy, loitering laws, graffiti laws, drug possession, prostitution and charge those who use the prostitutes.
We could pass a bylaw that any person prostituting themselves must pass medical tests that prove they do not have communicable diseases and must be licensed by City of Lethbridge, using that medical to receive that license,similar that all taxi drivers must be licensed.
This would not only get rid of many of the criminals (pimps, or as they call them, ‘husbands’) on our streets at night that cause many of the issues and make it saver for the public. Most of the ones on the streets right now have communicable diseases, HIV/Aids, Hep C, Hepititis, and other STD’s. But the law would have to be enforced to achieve this.
Streets Alive is a great organization and I support them because they are local!