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City administration presented their proposal of a Coordinated Care Campus to member of council Wednesday (Photo: Shaun Penner / EverythingGP staff)
By Shaun Penner
Social Services Hub

Grande Prairie City Council gets first look at proposed social services hub project

Jun 2, 2021 | 4:42 PM

Grande Prairie City Council members got their first detailed look into the proposed Coordinated Care Campus at the site of the current Stonebridge Hotel during a Council Committee of the Whole meeting Wednesday.

Council received a presentation on the project from administration. It is a proposed social services hub for those experiencing housing instability and chronic homelessness in the Swan City.

The proposal would see the city purchase the current hotel and conference centre for $12.5 million, contingent on council rezoning and approving the project, that would co-locate 120 community supportive housing units on the city’s north end with 24/7 wraparound supports, such as onsite medical care, mental health and addictions supports, food, recreation, and other needed programming.

The presentation was led by Protective and Social Services Director Chris Manuel, who outlined that this project is much different in nature than that of the Rotary House, meaning it would not be utilized as an emergency shelter or overnight mat program.

“A lot of the concern that I hear related to this project is the idea that it would be an emergency shelter and that it would have a very transient population, and that there would be lots of spillover to adjacent properties,” said Manuel, highlighting community concerns around increased crime and vandalism around neighbouring properties.

With that, he adds unlike an emergency shelter, the repurposed hotel and conference centre would give residents a place to call home and a centralized community, rather than a temporary space from which to come and go.

“Although the residents that end up occupying the rooms that will be onsite will have come from homelessness in the past, they won’t be homeless any longer. They will have their own dedicated space with their own possessions.”

Manuel notes they came into this proposal having learned from the city’s experience with the Parkside Inn pilot program, which ran for two years starting in 2018 at the former motel on 100 Avenue west of downtown.

He admits the pilot program did run into some problems right from the start.

“At the time, the existing motel operation was basically a concentration of a lot of criminal activity and adverse social behaviours,” said Manuel, noting that when the city took over operations of the project, some tenants remained at the site who were not part of the supportive housing pilot.

He says, unlike Parkside, the city and its partner agencies would start with a fresh slate, giving the Hub Table (representatives from the city, Canadian Mental Health Association, Rotary House, Northreach and Centrepoint) the chance to properly screen clients before allowing them to become a tenant.

“We know that if we take possession of the Stonebridge, we’re taking possession of a completely vacant property, in which we will be able to ensure the right tenants have been selected through the housing Hub Table… that properly evaluates people for success there.”

This project is proposed as another Alberta city, Medicine Hat, celebrates a milestone as being declared the first city in Canada to end chronic homelessness by the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness. The distinction means there are no more than three people experiencing homelessness in Medicine Hat for three straight months at a time.

Projects like community supportive housing have been something Manuel says Medicine Hat has utilized, with success.

Councillor Dylan Bressey, who served as Deputy Mayor during Wednesday’s meeting in the absence of Mayor Jackie Clayton, says council has long had a desire to work toward eliminating chronic homelessness.

However, Bressey and the rest of council are trying to balance the best way to address that issue, while considering many other factors.

“Many of our residents expect us to help, and there are also many residents that expect us to decrease social disorder on our streets, and many that expect us to decrease the amount of tax dollars we’re spending on emergency response.”

Addressing the issue of chronic homelessness does bring with it a financial cost, an issue many city taxpayers do not wish to use their municipal tax dollars on.

However, Manuel says tax implications of the facility could be minimal, despite the $12.5 million price tag.

He says between tenants of the facility paying rent, moving Enforcement Services from City on 99 and Community Social Development from its office downtown to the Stonebridge site, then divesting those two vacated properties, as well as reallocating provincial funding for homeless initiatives to the project, there could be little to no further tax implications.

“We’ve created a path where this is actually going to have, potentially, zero tax implication.”

As council got its first presentation on what the project aims to do, the community will now get its first look at the proposal. Two online public engagement sessions go Wednesday and Thursday, both of which have seen maximum registration.

Two more engagement sessions will be held on Monday, June 7 at 3 and 6:30 p.m. which have availability remaining. Residents interested can sign up to attend here.

The public hearing for the rezoning of the hotel is currently slated to go during the June 28 city council meeting.

by Shaun Penner