Achi news desk-
The Alberta government will build a new navigation and support center in Calgary, which it says is designed to ease the pressure felt by frontline workers and emergency services.
The navigation and support center will offer services such as income support, shelter and housing options, Indigenous resources, and assistance in obtaining a valid Alberta ID.
The center will also offer one-stop-shop access to health, mental health and addiction treatment, according to a news release Wednesday.
Transportation will be provided to and from the center, the province added, including a ride to the next location or referral. Alberta Health Services and the Calgary Urban Project Association will be on site to provide these services.
“We will bring together our not-for-profit partners, the Ministry of Social Services, as well as our sister ministries like mental health and addictions, and make sure we can get all that support… (And make sure) that people can access that support, and then they can go on to live successful and happy lives,” Social Services Minister Jason Nixon told reporters on Wednesday.
The center is expanding a similar program in Edmonton that aims to provide comprehensive resources to vulnerable and homeless Calgarians, the province said.
Nixon said the Edmonton navigation and support center was opened in response to the large number of encampments, particularly around and north of the downtown core, where most of Edmonton’s social service agencies and homeless shelters are located. are located.
Edmonton’s navigation and support center has been used by more than 1,850 people and has made about 5,625 referrals since January of this year, according to a Wednesday news release.
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The province also said the center helped with about 1,000 referrals to housing programs and connections to shelter services.
While Calgary has been working to manage encampments “in a compassionate way,” Nixon said, social disorder has been a challenge at CTrain stations and other public spaces.
A report by Calgary Vibrant Communities found that calls to police related to social disorder at LRT stations spiked in 2021 and 2022. In 2023, calls for service were back to pre-pandemic levels.
Social disorder is defined in the report as conversations by transit peace officers or Calgary Police Service officers involving littering, loitering, fare evasion and passing water or defecating at transit stations. However, they are usually not criminal in nature.
“This is a way we can help people in extremely vulnerable situations. And as the prime minister and the minister have outlined, it’s an opportunity to have all the services located in one place,” said Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek at a news conference on Wednesday.
“If you think about your own life and how difficult it is to go out and renew your driving licence, or go and find out where you might need to rent a place, it’s not easy to do.
“Navigating the system is not easy. And then I want you to imagine that you don’t have a home, or that you struggle with mental illness. How are you going to achieve this on your own?”
Patricia Jones, CEO of the Calgary Homeless Foundation, called the navigation and support center “a pivotal and first-of-its-kind initiative” for Calgary.
“Let us reaffirm our collective commitment to work hand in hand across sectors, across communities to tackle homelessness head on,” he said on Wednesday.
“With continued collaboration, partnership, innovation, investment… we can build a brighter future for all Calgarians, ensuring that every individual or family, whether it’s a mother or father or grandmother or elder, or’ n aunt or uncle, or God forbid, a child has the support he needs to have the life he wants.”
However, the Opposition NDP criticized the move, saying it does not add any permanent, supportive housing.
NDP housing critic Janis Irwin said the navigation and support center is just a “band-aid solution” from the UCP government.
“This is a performance measure by Danielle Smith and the UCP that will keep Albertans trapped in the shelter system, rather than connecting them to the permanent housing they need,” Irwin said in a statement.
“Minister Nixon announced a similar facility when Edmonton saw an increase in encampments. After two months, less than one percent of those who went to the navigation center were connected to permanent housing.
“The UCP plan has failed to fix the problem they claimed the navigation center would solve. In fact, they have pushed people further to the margins and further away from the essential services they need.
“I am concerned that a similar approach in Calgary will lead to similar poor results while wasting millions of tax dollars that could be invested in permanently housing Albertans.”
Edmonton’s navigation and support center has also been criticized by advocacy groups in the past.
Jim Gurnett with the advocacy group Edmonton Coalition on Housing and Homelessness said he is concerned that the way criminality in encampments was discussed at the news conference will confuse Edmontonians and lead to the belief that “homeless people are also part of a criminal element terrible .”
Gurnett added that he believes staying in a shelter is sometimes not safe either.
-With files from Phil Heidenreich, Global News.
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