A rough sleeper camp in Red Deer is tended to by peace officers in May 2019. (The City of Red Deer)

By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

fingers crossed

Homeless shelter funding on hold pending UCP budget

Jul 5, 2019 | 9:11 AM

The City of Red Deer is hopeful the UCP Government will follow through with a multi-million commitment for a homeless shelter.

The $7 million announced in March by former Social Services Minister Irfan Sabir was met with excitement from City officials following years of advocating for a shelter.

But the change in government has put a pause on the funding for the time being.

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“Given that we are still in the process of developing our Fall 2019 budget, a decision has not yet been made about this funding, which was promised by the NDP on the eve of the election but was never allocated,” said Natasha Kornak, press secretary for current Community and Social Services Minister Rajan Sawhney, in an statement to rdnewsNOW.

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“Minister Sawhney has met with Mayor Veer and City officials to better understand the needs of Red Deer’s homeless population,” Kornak added. “Our government remains committed to working in partnership with municipalities, non-profits, charities, and volunteers to help communities deliver effective outcomes and supports to vulnerable individuals.”

Veer says she has conveyed to Sawhney just how badly Red Deer needs a homeless shelter.

“Red Deer, historically, has received among the least amount of per capita shelter infrastructure funding amongst the metro and mid-sized regional hub communities, and that we’re seeing the consequences of that in our community,” Veer says.

“We’re seeing the manifestation in our downtowns with social disorder activity, we’re seeing it affect downtown business, but also there’s the spillover into the parks system.”

In January, city council approved $400,000 to clean up rough sleeper camps, which is the main symptom affecting parks.

Parks Superintendent Trevor Poth says for the first five months of the year, crews cleaned up 121 camps, twice as many as the same period in 2018.

However, Poth says the numbers don’t paint the whole picture.

“We’ve changed our practices at The City a little bit in order to provide better service to citizens,” he explains. “The first change is that we’ve really encouraged people to be reporting camps when they see them. We’re providing a much better service, are far more proactive from a policing and social care perspective, and Parks is able to get to the camps quicker,” he explains.

“Although the numbers look alarming, we’re not actually believing there are that many more rough sleepers out there. We think there’s just more reports of the camps coming into The City.”