There hasn’t been an official homeless count in Red Deer for several years.
But it’s no secret that dozens, if not hundreds, of people struggle to find enough to eat and a safe place to sleep every night in the city.
In 2005, a number of concerned citizens asked Mayor Morris Flewwelling to put an end to homelessness in the city. That sparked the Mayor’s Task Force on Ending Homelessness, which brought leaders and community members together to find a solution. Out of those discussions, the EveryOne’s Home — Red Deer’s Five Year Plan Towards Ending Homelessness was developed and then released in 2009. Its goal was to end chronic homeless in Red Deer by 2018.
“What we saw in front of us at that time was increasing numbers of homeless people,” said Flewwelling. “And a lack of the community’s ability to deal with homelessness in increasing numbers. We had people becoming homeless and we had emergency responses like People’s Place and the soup kitchens but that wasn’t helping the problem.”
Twenty or more agencies and organizations in the city are now working together to target specific areas, including healthy relationships, early intervention, emergency assistance, discharge planning and housing options.
At the same time, the province has its own strategy to end homeless by 2019. As part of the plan, provincial funding is channelled to the seven major cities in Alberta, including Red Deer, that work with community partners to deliver services to the homeless.
Funding is allocated based on factors such as population and shelter space usage in the community. Red Deer has received $5.1 million since 2009-2010.
The city’s focus is on ending chronic homelessness, getting more people housed, providing supports and keeping the shelter stays shorter.
Emergency situations and city growth will always ensure there is a place for shelters in the community. Flewwelling said provincial rent subsidies and affordable housing units have helped get people off the streets.
“I think now we realize we will never end homelessness,” said Flewwelling. “We will simply deal with it more effectively so we have a rolling population of people rather than an accumulating population.”
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) defines affordable housing rental housing as “less than 30 per cent of before-tax household income including rent and any payments for electricity, fuel, water and other municipal services.”
In 2006, Red Deer’s Affordable Housing Strategy addressed and outlined four recommendations to meet the affordable housing needs in Red Deer. The recommendations included refining the city’s internal policies and processes to lay the foundation for long-term success in meeting affordable housing needs; improving the city’s regulatory environment to enable development of affordable housing units, pursuing partnerships to acquire land to develop and manage affordable housing units, and educate and advocate to increase support for affordable housing initiatives in the community.
According to the City of Red Deer Housing Stock Analysis –– Social Planning (May 2006), there were 1,732 housing units in the city that were identified as “affordable housing” including emergency, transitional and non-market. An updated strategy is expected to be released next year.
Rebekah McDermott, the co-ordinator for EveryOne’s Home Leadership Model that guides the initiative, says progress has been made in building stronger and collaborative relationships between the agencies, which ultimately makes the referral process easier for the clients who need the services.
“I think all of us have recognized that relationships are key for anything to be successful,” said McDermott.
In 2011, the city released a report to the community highlighting successes in 2010-2011. According to the report, 136 Red Deer residents were housed and 78 per cent of those housed remained housed.
Among the housing projects, eight affordable housing units through the Shining Mountains Living Community Services and Julietta’s Place, a 10-unit apartment building for women and their children who have left domestic violence and abusive situations, were opened in 2010-2011.
The next report will be released in September.
Part of the solution is community involvement, says McDermott. She said homelessness is an issue that we sometimes don’t want to see or simply ignore in our own community.
“But once you are more aware about it you really start to notice there are a lot of people in our community that are without proper housing or shelter and some of the basic needs,” she said.
McDermott hopes the issue will continue to be in the forefront, with avenues such as www.reddeercares.com, Twitter (@WeCareRD) and the Facebook group (We Care Red Deer).
An interactive event showing what it means to be homeless is in the works for sometime this summer.
In the fall, the city will conduct an official “point in time” homeless count and survey to gain a better understanding of the demographic and to paint an overall picture. The city will also look at the people using the city’s services and shelters. The city conducted a survey a number of years ago that estimated 250 homeless in Red Deer.
“What we should see from that count is that we have a very much reduced population because we have taken it from a chronic and accumulative population to acute and episodic,” said Flewwelling.
“It will validate the resources we have put into it. It will show the numbers reduced despite the population (increase of five per cent in Red Deer) in the period of 2003 to 2008. We should see sharply reduced incidents of homelessness.”
crhyno@www.reddeeradvocate.com