Ten Alberta communities have reached record low temperatures in October 2023. (Photo: LNN)   

By Joel Mendelson

City of Lethbridge outlines winter accommodation plans

Oct 26, 2023 | 3:18 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – The City of Lethbridge has provided some details regarding extreme weather situations for this coming winter.

Andrew Malcolm, General Manager of Community Social Development and Luke Palmer, Emergency Planning and Risk Supervisor for the City of Lethbridge shared some of the City’s plans to combat the cold weather, which is already upon us.

According to Malcolm, in January 2023, City Council directed administration to prepare a shelter strategy. The strategy was brought to council for approval in June, the strategy would help with rezoning.

Malcolm said, “Part of that was to undertake a rezoning of the existing shelter site to remove some barriers for expansion and that was approved in July. Since that time, the government of Alberta, as the operational funder of the shelter spaces, Blood Tribe Department of Health as our current operator and the City of Lethbridge who own the building and the land, have been engaged in conversations and those are at a very advanced stage.”

He continued, “ There is a very old bylaw going back to the late 1980s so it had some restrictions in terms of parking requirements that would prevent expansion. Setbacks, and some pieces of the actual uses that were allowed. A shelter of a previous time is very different in operational nature than a shelter of today. Those were all removed and so basically from an operational perspective as well as actual physical growth, they’re now able to accommodate that.”

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He continued, saying that many of the City’s social partners that have a physical location which provide services as well.

The Blood Tribe Department of Health runs a shelter with a capacity just under 100, although Malcolm stated that they tend to go past that number until they reach fire capacity.

The YWCA and Woods Homes also provide another level of shelter for women and youth in our community.

Malcolm also described a plan to allocate city funds, “A big piece of this upcoming winter is the Government of Alberta recommitted $1 million in additional funding for the shelter. Separate from that, the City of Lethbridge oversees deferral funding called the Reaching Homes fund, which are also targeted towards homelessness, however they are not targeted toward shelter operations.”

He elaborated, “So what we are proposing is getting approval from city council to spend up to $230,000 of those federal-reaching home funds towards a drop-in center function, which in a perfect world, will be leveraged with the shelter operation.”

Ideally this drop-in location would be in the same location as the shelter for easy accessibility, and to make it easier for the workers.

Luke Palmer explained the plan of action in the case of extreme weather. The City of Lethbridge has had an emergency response plan in place since 2020. Its been enacted numerous times including twice this past summer.

In Alberta, an emergency is defined as -40 degrees (temperature plus wind chill) for two or more hours. Given southern Alberta’s volatile weather, the City has made their own definition.

Palmer said, “We have actually leveraged the Municipal Government Act and added an additional trigger point that we can activate. So if we are experiencing something here in the city, an extreme cold snap, and out executive side of things is viewing that there’s a concern in the community, and we haven’t met the defined threshold by Environment Canada, we can actually leverage that and define it as an emergency here in the city and activate that plan as required. So it’s a little more robust than it has been in the past.”

Palmer stressed that these measures are meant to help the entire community and are available for everyone.

READ MORE: Lethbridge News Now.

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