Kath Hoffman

By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

who should be held accountable?

Safe Harbour looking inward after council’s latest shelter vote

May 27, 2021 | 9:05 PM

The executive director at Safe Harbour Society says Red Deer city council’s latest shelter decision has them doing some self-reflecting.

Kath Hoffman says the word ‘accountability’ was heard numerous times from citizens during Tuesday’s public hearing, and from city councillors who on Wednesday approved another four-month extension for the temporary shelter to operate at the former Cannery Row building.

“What it sounds like to me is that over the next four months, Safe Harbour must prove itself and take accountability for individuals who can’t be accountable for themselves,” Hoffman suggests.

“What I want to find out now is who I’m accountable for, when I’m accountable for them, and where in the community I’m accountable for them? People three or four blocks away wrote letters; why am I accountable for that person not being accountable?”

Hoffman says Safe Harbour is bound by a mission statement of being welcoming and offering connection.Thus, given the discussion on accountability and coupled with comments from Councillor Vesna Higham, the agency feels forced to question where it stands.

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“I know this may sound extreme, but I’m at the point where I’d be willing to consider buying a bus ticket to Calgary or Edmonton for individuals in our community who for whatever reason won’t or cannot abide by such simple and basic expectations,” Higham said Wednesday.

Hoffman wonders who else this mentality should apply to.

“Does a drunk driver need to go on the bus to Edmonton or Calgary, or anyone else not being accountable for their own behaviour? That comment opens up a can of worms,” Hoffman says.

“Safe Harbour assumed that this city wanted to shelter everyone who needs it. But what it sounded like this week is that people only want shelter for the people who can behave themselves. We need to decide if that fits our mission statement.”

Hoffman believes Safe Harbour has been accountable, noting frustration with being blamed for all of the city’s social disorder.

“It’s a hell of a big load to put on us. There are two non-profits in this city trying to handle a public health crisis by themselves, and I don’t mean COVID. The non-profits always take the heat. We are committed to doing better, but people see garbage outside and automatically think that means Safe Harbour isn’t doing anything,” she feels.

“It is more productive for each of us to do our part to implement solutions rather than assigning blame. Safe Harbour, like all our community partners, are doing what they can in service to our vulnerable citizens in these very trying times,” Mayor Tara Veer said Thursday.

“We can choose to pull together or choose to pull apart, but only one of these will lead to the transformative change our community desperately needs.”

Seventy people slept in the shelter Tuesday, the location for which was chosen last year by the provincial government early in the pandemic for its spaciousness.

Hoffman says if no other landlord will lease them a building, which City admin said was the case as of Wednesday, there’s no money to purchase a building, and there won’t be a permanent shelter for two to three years, presenting some obvious consequences.

“We may be able to convert one area of our main facility to a 24/7 sleeping area for about 20 people. Otherwise people will scatter. Some will hang around the overdose prevention site adjacent to us, some will be ringing our doorbell.”

An administrative report noted potential consequences of forcing Safe Harbour to be out by June 1 would have included an increase in urban encampments, loitering, squatting and litter, no help for people experiencing street violence, an unsustainable increase in traffic to The Mustard Seed, the loss of the Social Diversion Team’s biggest referral site, and an inability to provide COVID-19 symptomatic persons with isolation.

Hoffman notes the day council approved a two-month extension in March was the same day a COVID-19 outbreak was discovered at the shelter.

City staff said Wednesday they’d also considered the possibility of a tent city.

Veer, who said she’d have voted in favour of the one-year extension, but later proposed the four months when the impending vote against it became clear, said The City of Red Deer is actively working with the province on fulfilling the Memorandum of Understanding regarding the construction of the permanent shelter.

“We needed to address the urgency of the emergency temporary shelter, and the focus of the next couple weeks will now return to the permanent shelter.”

$7 million in provincial funding was announced for a permanent shelter in Feb. 2020.

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