Photo: Shaun Penner / EverythingGP staff

By Shaun Penner

Homelessness

Increasing variety of housing options among keys in city’s three-year homelessness strategy

Jun 22, 2021 | 2:26 PM

City administration has laid out its plan to continue addressing and improving upon homelessness in the city over the next three years.

The Homelessness Strategy for Grande Prairie 2021-2023 was presented to the Protective and Social Services Committee on Tuesday, which has a key focus on building on partnerships with community agencies to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of services and supports delivered.

Interim Mayor Jackie Clayton says committee, and council, are generally pleased with the overall direction administration is taking to address chronic homelessness in the city over the next three years.

“The hope is to build and foster relationships across various industries,” said Clayton. “The strategy really actions and leverages a variety of appropriate housing options (too).”

A census undertaken in April of this year showed there were an estimated 202 people experiencing homelessness in the city, 51 per cent of whom self-identified as being Indigenous.

Protective and Social Services Director Chris Manuel says “a great deal of effort” is going to be put towards addressing and curbing that issue, especially with the help of federal funds coming in 2022.

“Key to that is really understanding the factors that are leading to that over-representation,” said Manuel. “The strategy, and our partners, inclusive of the broader City of Grande Prairie organization, are very intent on moving the needle and improving that number.

“Because it’s not just disproportionate, it’s substantially disproportionate.”

The three-year strategy was developed with learnings from the past decade of working towards reducing homelessness in the city.

Since 2009, the city has heavily utilized its Housing First programming, which came with it a recovery-oriented system of care that they are looking to build on.

Manuel says one of the biggest detriments of the Housing First program though was it utilized a lot of market housing, which does not offer a system of care needed by many clients who were transitioning out of homelessness to effectively stay off the streets long-term.

That’s why he says increasing the amount of affordable and transitional housing in the city will be important, but especially increasing the amount of permanent supportive housing units, like the proposed Coordinated Care Campus at the Stonebridge Hotel site.

“Ultimately, the strategy recognizes that diverse housing options, particularly supportive housing options… are going to be critical to providing a broad range of options, so we can place the right housing solution for the specific needs of the client,” said Manuel.

“Instead of trying to force people into a specific model that is not going to work for their specific needs.”

The full three-year plan can be found here.