‘Lack of facilities for permanent supportive housing,’ says Thomsen
By Tim Kalinowski on May 21, 2021.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDtkalinowski@lethbridgeherald.com City of Lethbridge manager of Community Social Development Martin Thomsen gave members of the Cultural and Social Standing Policy Committee of city council on Thursday a grim assessment of the severe challenges facing local organizations in establishing new permanent supportive housing facilities in the community.“The problem has been facilities,” Thomsen explained. “The facilities we intended to house the individuals in- unfortunately every one of them has not come to fruition. In addition, COVID has created some problems in that we were shifting folks around to create additional capacity.
“That is the bleeding of the neck issue in our community. It is a lack of facilities for permanent supportive housing.”
Thomsen underscored this problem by giving the example of what the YWCA has gone through in the past year in trying to get a new expanded facility up and running in the city.
“Originally the YWCA was going to look at purchasing the old Red Crow College, and converting it to a men’s 24-unit facility,” he explained. “Their board gave them the approval to do that last October, and that fell through due to some planning and zoning issues. And then they shifted gears a bit, and were looking at potentially purchasing the Days Inn using the federal government Rapid Housing Initiative capital dollars, and, unfortunately, that has fallen through.
“And then the third option was they were going to shift beds around within the YWCA building, but have been unable to do that because of the COVID issue and having to maintain social distancing. They were not able to convert rooms according to the original plan.”
Thomsen said other problems have held up the provincial government’s promised 42-bed permanent supportive housing facility in the city.
“Unfortunately the ($11 million) funding that was announced three years ago has not come to fruition,” Thomsen explained to SPC members. “And even if that project gets a shovel in the ground tomorrow, it’s still going to be at least a year until that facility is built.”
Thomsen confirmed the province had purchased a lot for the new facility and had approved funding to go ahead with the functional design aspect of the facility, but the project had hit some unforeseen snags and has essentially stalled.
“During that three-year time period, of course COVID has hit,” he explained. “And the cost of the facility has increased by about $2.5 million. It’s because of two key reasons: One, it’s lumber prices– they have dramatically increased the price of the facility. And in 2020, the province changed a lot of the building codes, which have increased the cost by a bit of money. So, they are short roughly $2.5 million right now.”
Thomsen said he and Community Services manager Mike Fox were scheduled to meet with the province to help determine a way forward for the much-needed facility.
In the meantime, Thomsen confirmed the City had set up a new Social Services Integration Committee, which includes diverse stakeholders from both the social services and business community, to tackle the problem of where and how to get these permanent supportive housing facilities set up in Lethbridge.
“Until we get a larger facility or a facility we can move these folks to, it’s not necessarily the service provider that is the issue,” he stated. “It’s the facility.”
The Cultural and Social Standing Policy Committee received Thomsen’s report for information, and unanimously recommended city council reallocate existing supportive housing dollars up to $447,748 for the Family Ties Association to continue to fund temporary beds at River House in 2021-2022 with the hope that a more permanent facility can be found in the next year.
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