Building a City for Everyone
Important: below you will find my opinions and views, presented humbly and with respect, about what I have observed and witnessed in Lethbridge, along with my proposals to create a more inclusive and accessible community for everyone. I offer these insights to you respectfully, cognizant that not everyone's experiences in the City are the same. Please engage respectfully.
Lethbridge is home to a transient population of people experiencing homelessness. Homelessness in our city has become a major issue that needs immediate addressing from not just the City, but also our partners at the Provincial and Federal government levels. The majority of our homeless population also suffer from issues of mental illness, addiction, inequity, and poverty creating a very complex array of challenges to try and solve.
While no single person can have all the answers, there are strategies to affect positive change in the community that I, as a Councillor, would endorse in Lethbridge.
When it comes to the most afflicted of our unhoused the primary solution is simple: house them.
But how!? Aggrieved tax-payers bemoan expenditures of resources on individuals often seen as a blight on the community. Rhetoric in Lethbridge has predominantly called for us creating a "camp" on the outskirts of the city, somewhere "out-of-sight" where these individuals can go. This rhetoric helps no one.
Unfortunately, tucking people experiencing homelessness away doesn't actually help solve the problem. Rather, it creates a further divide between the individuals and society, furthering issues of mental illness and depression. Instead, there are a few strategies Lethbridge can start building towards immediately to help solve this major social ill.
While no single person can have all the answers, there are strategies to affect positive change in the community that I, as a Councillor, would endorse in Lethbridge.
When it comes to the most afflicted of our unhoused the primary solution is simple: house them.
But how!? Aggrieved tax-payers bemoan expenditures of resources on individuals often seen as a blight on the community. Rhetoric in Lethbridge has predominantly called for us creating a "camp" on the outskirts of the city, somewhere "out-of-sight" where these individuals can go. This rhetoric helps no one.
Unfortunately, tucking people experiencing homelessness away doesn't actually help solve the problem. Rather, it creates a further divide between the individuals and society, furthering issues of mental illness and depression. Instead, there are a few strategies Lethbridge can start building towards immediately to help solve this major social ill.
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Fortunately the experts agree: an ounce of prevention is worth a tonne of cure. Lethbridge has the opportunity to ensure that everyone who needs a home here can access one within their means and budget. Many lower income families can spend up to 60% or more of their income on housing leaving virtually nothing left over for other incidentals. New research in North America shows that most households are a single missed pay-cheque away from debilitating financial distress, and the COVID pandemic has really brought the crisis to the forefront as people struggle to find suitable employment in their communities.
The City has the opportunity to become an active partner in ensuring every single person who lives here has access to safe and affordable accommodation, and as a growing city this kind of investment is overdue. The great news is: housing people reliably costs less than arresting them repeatedly and taking up ER beds needed by others. |
So what do we do?
1. House people: The City of Lethbridge already has some pretty great programs for assisting people finding housing, but our resources are stretched pretty thin, with multiple agencies all applying for funding from the same pot. We need to streamline processes for getting people into assisted housing before they become homeless, and that means having open and accessible conversations with people who may be struggling. Outreach will be very important: people need to know where they can go to receive aide. The next part of the House People strategy is making sure we have co-housing opportunities available in Lethbridge that are affordable for all natures of families to access. Co-housing doesn't have to mean that all people in a single building are on housing assistance programs: rather a building that promotes mixed housing of assisted and unassisted living would be the most beneficial. Cheaper rent for students, and young families will benefit others in the community who perhaps need less assistance than some others. Ensuring access to safe and secure housing, as well as food and other services is paramount to the community's recovery.
2. Recovery Assistance Programs: In addition to preventing homelessness in Lethbridge, we need recovery options for people experiencing mental health and addiction issues that have either contributed to, or resulted in, their unhoused status. Safe supportive housing for people using opioids, as well as well-funded support programs for intox, detox, harm reduction, and recovery facilities needs to be added to our network. The contentious Supervised Consumption Site has left a bad taste in people's mouths here, but doing nothing doesn't solve the problem. We need all four pillars of support to ensure this problem is being handled and the people going through recovery are treated with dignity and respect. We need to encourage employment opportunities and entrepreneurship opportunities for people in recovery so we can reintegrate them as the community builders they can be, if given the support!
3. Enforcement and Regulation: Obviously enforcement will need to be routed in a community-building metric rather than "war-on-drugs" style enforcement that has proven so ineffective over the last 4 decades. Police need to be empowered to refer individuals to services in the Community, rather than focus on arrests of people using drugs or engaging in mental-health disparate behavior. Instead, Lethbridge Police Services should be empowered to go directly after drug dealers and properties that are being used as drug-use sites. We are making headway here, but Lethbridge residents also have a role to play. We'll get more into this on the community policing page (coming soon).
1. House people: The City of Lethbridge already has some pretty great programs for assisting people finding housing, but our resources are stretched pretty thin, with multiple agencies all applying for funding from the same pot. We need to streamline processes for getting people into assisted housing before they become homeless, and that means having open and accessible conversations with people who may be struggling. Outreach will be very important: people need to know where they can go to receive aide. The next part of the House People strategy is making sure we have co-housing opportunities available in Lethbridge that are affordable for all natures of families to access. Co-housing doesn't have to mean that all people in a single building are on housing assistance programs: rather a building that promotes mixed housing of assisted and unassisted living would be the most beneficial. Cheaper rent for students, and young families will benefit others in the community who perhaps need less assistance than some others. Ensuring access to safe and secure housing, as well as food and other services is paramount to the community's recovery.
2. Recovery Assistance Programs: In addition to preventing homelessness in Lethbridge, we need recovery options for people experiencing mental health and addiction issues that have either contributed to, or resulted in, their unhoused status. Safe supportive housing for people using opioids, as well as well-funded support programs for intox, detox, harm reduction, and recovery facilities needs to be added to our network. The contentious Supervised Consumption Site has left a bad taste in people's mouths here, but doing nothing doesn't solve the problem. We need all four pillars of support to ensure this problem is being handled and the people going through recovery are treated with dignity and respect. We need to encourage employment opportunities and entrepreneurship opportunities for people in recovery so we can reintegrate them as the community builders they can be, if given the support!
3. Enforcement and Regulation: Obviously enforcement will need to be routed in a community-building metric rather than "war-on-drugs" style enforcement that has proven so ineffective over the last 4 decades. Police need to be empowered to refer individuals to services in the Community, rather than focus on arrests of people using drugs or engaging in mental-health disparate behavior. Instead, Lethbridge Police Services should be empowered to go directly after drug dealers and properties that are being used as drug-use sites. We are making headway here, but Lethbridge residents also have a role to play. We'll get more into this on the community policing page (coming soon).
Building a City for Everyone isn't just about our Unhoused or drug-using populations...there's other work to be done!
A holistic community approach means appreciating that the way Lethbridge is built isn't always friendly to everyone who lives here, including people not suffering from homelessness or mental illnesses. Sometimes, the infrastructure and design of our community limits our residents in other ways.
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Lethbridge is notably auto-centric in design and access. This means development within the city assumes that our residents prefer to travel by private car, rather than utilizing public forms of transport. As Lethbridge moves towards an environmentally sustainable future and more possibilities are explored to amplify our ability to traverse the community, we need to ensure our future is accessible to everyone who lives here. This could mean sacrificing lanes of cars for wider sidewalks more conducive to mobility aids and other transportation like bikes, or e-scooters, or walking. This could mean emphasizing and encouraging more transit use through public programs that reduce fare rates for frequent users, or provide frequent & free transit.
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Sustainable and Accessible development also means curtailing the urban and suburban sprawl of the city, and actively promoting mixed zoning. Our current zoning model is excessively prohibitive to development of accessible communities. Fortunately, the City Administration is already moving in the right direction on this. There are some policies that should be re-worked to ensure we are growing this way in the future.
Personally I'm a fan of the 8 - 80 Communities philosophy, which accounts for the community needs of everyone from age 8 to 80, ensuring fringe populations like children and seniors are also considered in any new development scheme. This creates a more robust community ensuring everyone has ease of access and is encouraged to participate.
Personally I'm a fan of the 8 - 80 Communities philosophy, which accounts for the community needs of everyone from age 8 to 80, ensuring fringe populations like children and seniors are also considered in any new development scheme. This creates a more robust community ensuring everyone has ease of access and is encouraged to participate.
