Alberta minister says Edmonton shelter spaces are properly funded

City council voted to spend $1 million to add day-shelter capacity in Edmonton. The Alberta government says shelters are already properly funded.

Minister of Seniors, Community and Social Services Jason Nixon responded to Edmonton councillors vote on Monday to spend $1 million to add day-shelter space in the capital city. Nixon said that shelters are properly budgeted to meet capacity in Edmonton.

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On Monday, Edmonton Mayor Andrew Knack said while provincial funding has increased shelter space in the last few years, there was still “an immediate gap” in day spaces – saying that many shelter spaces do not accommodate people during the day.

“I think the mayor’s just wrong and he should take some time to get briefed and come and see what shelter capacity is. We’ll make the department available to him,” Nixon said on Wednesday. “It is the rule that shelters must be open 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week.”

Nixon added that there are more than 2,000 day and night spaces in Edmonton, and he said that shelters on Tuesday night were at about 74 per cent capacity.

The Social Services Minister complimented the outgoing mayor, Amarjeet Sohi, on working with the province to “increase affordable housing stock in the City of Edmonton by 30 per cent.”

“That shows what happens when all three levels of government are working together and I hope that’s what we can see take place,” Nixon said.

He said that the focus of funding should be on services and support to people at the shelters, including housing support, help with addictions, and providing food and clothing.

“There is room for people to go in the day and the night, and there will continue to be,” the minister said. “If we ever end up in a spot where that’s not the case, we have plans where we would surge capacity and we would talk about adding capacity. But adding capacity when you don’t need capacity is not going to help the system.”

Nixon added that the City of Edmonton is “welcome to add day spaces,” but there are no plans from the province to match the funding for added shelters.

The Edmonton Mayor’s office issued a statement in response on Wednesday, saying that “the Minister is correct that the shelters they fund are open 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week” and city council is “engaging with business owners, front line workers and all Edmontonians in their communities and at their doors.”

“In order to address the concerns raised by Edmontonians, we want to provide additional support on top of the work being done by the provincial government which is why council has unanimously approved a motion to fund the creation of more day spaces,” the statement from Knack said.

The mayor’s office added that part of the approved municipal dollars will go towards an evaluation that will help identify if the chosen approach is “providing additional help.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Jeremy Thompson