City of Lethbridge to explore creating sober shelter at Civic Centre

A few city councillors who voted in favour of the motions to create a temporary sober shelter admitted that it is not the ultimate, perfect solution. Schmidt-Rempel says, however, that it is at least a start.

“You know, it’s one foot in front of the other as far as this goes. We’re not in an ideal situation, there is no perfect solution, and it’s very difficult to make these decisions because we have to take our entire community and finding a space for everybody in this community to belong. This is one of those steps,” says Schmidt-Rempel.

The vote in city council was not unanimous as Ryan Parker and John Middleton-Hope voted against the motions.

Parker believes that the Civic Centre area is simply not an ideal location for a facility like this, especially when other resources like the Alpha House Shelter and the Overdose Prevention Site are fairly far away.

His worry is that having the temporary sober shelter at the Civic Centre would do nothing to eliminate the so-called “tent city” and do little to help the people living in it.

“By empowering and allowing that city center to go as [an interim shelter space], I think it’s gonna become a ghetto. Straight up, it’s gonna become a ghetto,” says Parker. “Right now, we have the appropriate services over by Stafford, it does need some investment, there’s no doubt about it, to make sure that these people at risk are taken care of, but right now, you’re going to create two areas where it’s going to kind of be done, not to the best of its ability.”

Instead, Parker believes a better solution would be to invest in and expand the current Alpha House shelter to be able to accommodate more people and provide more services.

Homeless supports fall under the jurisdiction of the provincial government, so the city will have to apply for the interim sober shelter to be created and advocate to the province for the associated wrap-around social services.

The responsibilities of the municipal and provincial governments. (Image: City of Lethbridge)

Director of Community Services Mike Fox says the temporary shelter is a step that the city can take now while work is ongoing on a permanent location. He explains that this will take more time because there will be matters related to zoning, construction, and more that will need to be sorted out.

The City of Lethbridge wants to be clear about what today’s decision means. Council did not vote to turn the Civic Ice Centre into a sober shelter. Instead, they voted to direct administration to begin the process of applying to the provincial government to make that happen.

In the meantime, the municipality said it will conduct a thorough engagement with the public and recommendations will come back to city council, likely in September 2022. If all goes well, they hope to potentially turn the facility into a temporary sober shelter by November this year.

by David Opinko

City of Lethbridge to explore creating sober shelter at Civic Centre

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