City Administration is putting the finishing touches on the Saskatoon Homelessness Action Plan as the crisis continues to make itself known in the city.
The most recent adjustment to the plan was an expansion of roles that the City will take on, including establishing a community land trust, pursuing additional collaborative funding partnerships, developing incentives for vacant and boarded up properties.
Administration proposed the role expansion to the Governance and Priorities Committee Wednesday morning. Councilor Bev Dubois was on board with the additional tasks but questioned where the City draws the line on scope creep.
“Roles are what I’m still a little blurry on, because the City of Saskatoon is not Social Services, and a lot of this stuff fits in there,” she suggested.
City Manager Jeff Jorgenson says Administration believes it is staying in its own lane with these proposals.
“The Province has made some announcements about treatment centers and expanded shelter beds, so they clearly have a lane, and the list of responsibilities we’re proposing the City take a leadership role on, we think doesn’t overlap into their realm.”
The expansion was approved unanimously by the committee but will still need to be reviewed by City Council to get the green light. The province is also working on several similar initiatives, such as the development of a navigation hub in partnership with the City of Saskatoon. Councilor Robert Pearce asked Jorgenson how close Administration is to finding a permanent shelter location.
“It will be sixty beds, and we’re working very collaboratively with the Province representatives on that. We’re very hopeful that an announcement will be made in the coming weeks. I know I’ve said that before, but we’re very hopeful that we’ll able to make that announcement within the coming weeks of where that location is and then (we will start to) conduct those public information sessions that we had committed to.”
The committee also directed Administration to meet with the Provincial Administration for further discussion. The SHAP, which has been in the works since 2015, is expected to be finalized by September of this year.
