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By Alessia Proietti and Sheldon Spackman

Reaching Home

Red Deer to receive additional $2.24 million from feds to reduce homelessness

Aug 17, 2022 | 3:18 PM

As part of a federal funding initiative, Red Deer will be receiving an additional $2.24 million over the next two years to address the rise in homelessness, according to Housing & Homelessness Supports Supervisor Ryan Veldkamp.

On Wednesday, the Honourable Ahmed Hussen, Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion announced that the Government of Canada roughly doubled its investments in Reaching Home: Canada’s Homelessness Strategy, from more than $2 billion over 9 years to nearly $4 billion in federal funding since its launch in April 2019.

The community-based Reaching Home program aims to support the goals of the National Housing Strategy by helping vulnerable Canadians maintain safe, stable, and affordable housing and eliminate chronic homelessness across the country.

“Every Canadian deserves a safe and affordable place to call home. Under Reaching Home, the government is investing in the wellbeing of Canadians who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness. We will continue to work with other levels of government, NGOs, Indigenous partners, and communities to increase the availability of safe, inclusive housing options. We know there’s more work to do, and by working together, we will build on our work towards eliminating chronic homelessness across Canada,” said Hussen.

Since the program’s inception, Veldkamp says the federal government gave Red Deer $1.05 million in 2020 and $1.47 million in 2021.

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He says the City’s Safe & Healthy Communities department has been able to utilize the funds efficiently from having a thoroughly integrated plan established in advance.

“Our community really benefited from having a strong community plan which allowed us to have an expedited response when these dollars were made available and those dollars were really put into areas that were previously identified as service needs in a really succinct and quick fashion so that we could get as many people housed,” he said.

With previous funding, Veldkamp explained how the department would distribute funds based on target levels for each agency and service related to housing supports. In 2019-2020, the City intended to fund 80 per cent of their targets with their initial financial planning; however, with the funds from the federal government, he says they were able to reach 100 per cent of their targets, except for permanent housing which requires more ongoing capital.

Veldkamp confirms at the onset of the pandemic, some of the funds were put towards additional shelter space to allow for physical distancing. The funds were later distributed, he says, to fund a few pilot projects focused on housing, and to organizations like the Mustard Seed and Safe Harbour to continue their services in supporting individuals finding housing.

Finally, he says some of the funds have also gone to prevention services to help individuals at risk of homelessness to keep their housing.

For 2022-23 and 2023-24, he confirms Red Deer will receive an increase of $1.12 million for each year.

“Housing had really become a national priority and really highlighted during the pandemic the need for housing for everyone and has become really a national dialogue which has really spurred this additional investment in Reaching Home funding,” he said.

For the fiscal years of 2019-20 to 2023-24, the federal government, has already allocated nearly $2.2 billion to communities through the Reaching Home program, serving 64 urban centres, three territorial capitals, 30 Indigenous communities, and other rural and remote communities across Canada. Of that, $299 million has been distributed in Alberta.

The Government of Canada says they have already distributed in total nearly $3 billion over nine years to address homelessness, including other contributions made throughout the pandemic.

The new investment includes $567 million over two years beginning in 2022-23 announced in Budget 2021. Budget 2022 proposes to provide an additional $562.2 million over two years in 2024-25, for a total of $1.1 billion between both budgets.

In the first two years of the program, they say over 75,000 services were provided to prevent persons from becoming homeless or that helped place them into housing and while also funding education programs, job training programs and social integration activities.