Council rejects outreach funding for Streets Alive

By Lethbridge Herald on March 8, 2023.

People stand outside the door of Streets Alive. Lethbridge city council defeated a request by administration to provide federal Reaching Home funding to Streets Alive Mission to operate outreach programming. Herald file photo

Al Beeber – LETHBRIDGE HERALD – abeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

Lethbridge city council on Tuesday defeated by a 6-3 motion a request by administration to provide up to $215,460 per year of federal Reaching Home funding to Streets Alive Mission to operate outreach programming.

The vote came after a lengthy debate and numerous questions from councillors about the proposal.

In initiative C 11.2 that was passed by council last November during budget deliberations, municipal funding was put aside for four years for Lethbridge outreach programs. The initiative called for two outreach teams which council deemed key in helping to move people into the housing and recovery continuums through approaches best for each individual.

The initiative stated “there are gaps in both a fulsome encampment response and Indigenous-specific outreach programs within the community. Having these outreach teams will bolster the developing encampment response.”

One aspect of the request that raised concerns at the meeting was that the two teams were now proposed to be melded into one with no specific Indigenous component stated in the proposal. Councillors weren’t satisfied by the response given by City administration that such a component would be assured through contractual provisions with Streets Alive and that the contract would be monitored.

Councillor Rajko Dodic said often times council talks about grants and funding from other levels of government which puts pressures on council, saying sometimes it works out and others it doesn’t.

“The request for a quotation, the response given was that it met the minimum standards required and by the questions that were posed by members of council, it became very clear there were more questions than there were answers,” he said referring to a comment made by General Manager of Community and Social Development Andrew Malcolm earlier in the discussion.

Streets Alive was the only agency that submitted an application to operate the service. After a short period of negotiations, it was informed of its selection as the successful proponent.

“After I have read all the material, I’m being asked to allocate monies to a project which I really don’t know is something that can be done based on the request for quotations and it’s one thing to say ‘yes we’re going to be able to monitor, we’re going to have contracts’ but these are pieces of paper,” said Dodic.

“At the end of the day, I want to be satisfied if we’re going to be providing outreach services that we in fact are providing those outreach services and that is not a reflection on Streets Alive or anyone else. It’s just the material before me does not reach the level that’s needed for me to be able to allocate monies whether be it from the municipality, the federal or the provincial coffers,” Dodic added.

Acting mayor Jenn Schmidt-Rempel said like Dodic she didn’t believe council had been provided enough information on what will be achieved or delivered and had concerns there was no Indigenous component addressed in the RFQ (request for quote) council received.

 “I’m also not at all comfortable with the combination of the two dedicated outreach team channels that we voted on during budget process. That’s what we voted on during budget process and now that’s being changed. I want to see those separate channels because I want to make sure our most vulnerable populations are getting the services that they need and getting connected to the services that they need.

Mayor Blaine Hyggen said he had similar reasons as others for not supporting the motion.

Councillor John Middleton-Hope said he needs to see a strategic plan and to be sure that the decisions council is making are the right decisions.

“We’re being asked to spend a significant amount of money and we’re being told that we can look to downstream feedback in terms of whether this is the appropriate course of action that we’re taking and whether or not it’s being successful. Let’s get this right, let’s not do this quick,” he added pointing out the city’s had nearly a year to debrief, research and prepare a response for the upcoming spring.

“And council is now being put in a position where we look like the bad guys because we’re not going to fund a program that quite candidly is not fulsome in its explanation of what it hopes to accomplish or how it proposes to do that.”

In support of the motion, councillor Belinda Crowson said “outreach is the beginning of the housing continuum of care. The difficulty, of course, is you have to have the entire continuum in. We need to have housing to move people along to and right now we don’t have the appropriate housing, we don’t have permanent supportive housing – it’s been promised, we’ve never seen it. We don’t have much of it in place,” she said.

“So almost anyone doing outreach is going to be challenged,” added Crowson, saying making outreach part of the continuum of care is about building relationships and making sure people are taken care of as much as possible.

She said building relationships can take time and isn’t easy to do, adding in her perfect world she would advocate the money go to housing which she said everybody knows is where her heart is.

Councillors Mark Campbell and Jeff Carlson also spoke their support for the funding. Carlson pointed out the weather will soon be warming up and the encampments returning so something needs to be put in place.

Campbell stated the money is for helping people who need that help, noting Streets Alive has experience in the field. He added there is the component of contract expectation in the funding as he expressed his support for the resolution.