Edmonton mayor asks province for millions to support housing, transit, economic recovery from COVID-19

Edmonton is asking the Alberta government for tens of millions of dollars to help the city build and operatepermanent supportive housing.

Mayor Amarjeet Sohialso wants money for public transit and to help the city'score businesses recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The mayormade aproactive request this week, ahead of Alberta Finance Minister Travis Toews releasing the 2022-23 provincialbudget on Feb. 24.

The city's budget submission to the province, released to news media Thursday, shows Edmonton hasasked the province to contribute $49.7 million about one-third of the estimated $149 million that it will cost to build552 units of permanent supportive housing, the remainderofthe city's long-term plan to build 900 units.

"We have a crisis in our city," Sohi said during a news conference. "People are sleeping outside in winter because they don't have supportive housing to go into."

Edmonton is currently building five supportive housing complexes and working on converting another two hotels into housing for a total of 348 units by the end of the year.

To operate the complexesscheduled to open in 2022, Sohi is also looking for about$9 million a year from the province for 24-7 staffing to providemental health and addictions services at the housing complexes, the budget submission says.

Susan McGee, CEO of housing agency Homeward Trust, is pleased Sohi is making the requests.

"We really do need to have a long-term plan for the kind of work that we're doing around supportive housing in those individuals that have more complex needs," McGeesaid.

"Support for those 900 units that we plan to bring on stream is going to be really critical."

The city and agencies have been working since 2017 on these permanent supportive housing complexes, she noted.

"This particular type of housing is unique in its model and hasn't yet to date been funded sufficiently."

Transitshortfall, COVID recovery

Sohi's budget request also includes long-term funding and strategies for infrastructure and transit.

The budget submissionrefers to a section in the previous city charter deal between the province, Calgary and Edmonton, which Jason Kenney's UCP government nixed in 2019.

Restoring that capital funding about $400 million per year would allow Alberta's two largest cities "to realize their future focused mass transit systems," the document said.

The City of Edmonton estimates it will need $81 million over the next two years tomake up for lost transit revenues, as ridership on buses and LRThas dropped about 50 per cent since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

Sohi said if the province and Ottawa don't come through, the transit system and riders will suffer.

"We would have to scale back our service and that will really impact Edmontonians' ability to access services and programs and jobs because public transit is essential. That is my worry."

The mayor isalso asking for $5 million to helpstruggling downtown businessesrecover from the pandemic.

Sohi toutedhis efforts to reset the relationship with the provincial government. Since being elected mayor in October, he has met with Kenney and his cabinet ministers and hadpositive and fruitful discussions, he said.

"I am optimistic that our provincial government will step up for Edmonton," Sohi said.

He added that housing, economic recovery and transit needs are immediate, and they're"the bare minimum that we would expect our provincialgovernment to deliver on."

@natashariebe