The debate about the location of Prince Albert’s new homeless shelter will continue later this month following a roughly 90 minute discussion at Monday’s executive committee meeting.
Council voted unanimously to move the item to the March 24 meeting after City Manager Sherry Person recommended referring it to a future meeting. City administrators faced a steady stream of questions from council, and Person said administrators needed better direction before proceeding with more reports or consultation meetings.
“I’m literally spinning my wheels for the last year, year and a half, almost two years trying to figure out what we’re going to do with the shelter. I don’t want to spin our wheels anymore because it’s not helping anybody move forward,” Person said during the meeting.
Heading into the meeting, administration recommended two motions to council. The first would have had them prepare a report for the April 7 council meeting. The second would have allowed administration to share their results at a public meeting before April 7.
In an interview on Tuesday, Mayor Bill Powalinsky said council wanted to make sure all questions were addressed before making a decision.
“Last night (Monday) we had three to four potential locations. That was the opportunity to move forward and debate which one of the four would be most suitable, but … we discovered that there’s a lot more that we can do to gather community input,” Powalinsky said in the interview. “This is the start of a new process for community engagement, and as we go along we certainly learn things about process and things about steps. We’re going to take the valuable information that we learned last night and apply it to future consultations.”
When asked what subject council wanted more feedback on, Powalinsky said it was “the whole package.” He said security has been at the forefront of many residents’ minds, but it’s just one of many issues.
“A lot of it, frankly, goes back to ‘what’s the image of Prince Albert?’ If we can’t deal with social problems, how does that affect the rest of our community—our economic development community—and so on and so forth?”
At times during Monday’s meeting, Person said she was confused by council’s requests. She said administration needed more direction about what the next steps were.
When Powalinsky suggested council should determine what the goals are, while administration comes up with a plan to hit those goals, Person said they did that already with the homeless shelter consultation, and it wasn’t working.
“We did that this last time, and it sounds like that was a disaster,” Person said. “What I’m saying is I think this time it should be council telling us exactly what you want the next steps to be because I’m not sure we met even one of the expectations. I’m saying that this time coming up, I think it is for council to specifically determine what the next steps are.”
During the meeting, Powalinsky said he supported the work administration had done so far.
“I think we did achieve quite a few outcomes,” he said. “I certainly want to say that it’s not a fault or a miss on this one. We did do some remarkable work.”
Monday’s debate followed a five minute presentation from Community Safety and Well-Being Coordinator Anna Dinsdale, who outlined the findings from four community consultation meetings, more than 150 letters and emails, and hundreds of survey responses.
Dinsdale said there were 11 reoccurring themes from the data. Two of the big ones included proximity to residential housing and support services. Dinsdale said 78.43 per cent of respondents indicated residential areas were not ideal locations, while 65.94 per cent indicated the ideal location would be within a five to 10 minute walk from support services.
Administrators used the feedback to create scoring matrix and narrow down a list of possible sites. In her report, Dinsdale wrote that 11 – 15th Street East was the most suitable City-owned property.
On Monday, Dinsdale told council they were not recommending any specific site.
“We are asking council to allow us to go back to the public to share the results of this consultation to gather the information that we need to make a final recommendation on a location to council on April 7,” Dinsdale said.
That April 7 date proved a sticking point for a few city councillors. Ward 1 Coun. Daniel Brown was the most vocal. Following Dinsdale’s presentation, he made an amendment that would have brought the report back on June 23 instead of April 7.
“I have serious concerns about this shelter motion, “Brown said during the meeting. “I’m a new councillor. I believe this is being rushed. I don’t like the wording that’s being used in motions. I don’t like the things that are being stated in the public in regards to council supporting this. I for one do not support this. I have serious, serious questions and I can’t see me getting any answers to them by April.”
Ward 7 Coun. Dawn Kilmer recommended council continue the discussion at the March 24 executive committee meeting.
“I hear us all saying we need more time to get more information and then move forward, to give administration really clear direction, not have them using their time guessing,” she said. “We need to be very specific, because it is a very important discussion and decision.”
The YWCA was awarded tender by the provincial government to operate the new homeless shelter in Prince Albert. Dinsdale told council the province reached out last week for an update.
On Monday, Dinsdale said there were “significant and increasing public health concerns” with the current Stepping Stones Shelter at the Prince Albert Exhibition grounds. During her presentation, she said 73.84 per cent of residents who provided public feedback said building a new shelter was an urgent issue.
When asked whether the province would be willing to pay to service a location if it doesn’t have utilities, Dinsdale said the province may not cover those costs.
