Agenda highlights
Community Social Roadmap: Working Together to Address Social Needs in St. Albert
This is the most important report to consider for anyone considering running for Council in the 2025 election.
“1,547 residents completed surveys that provided input on what social issues were important to them and perspectives on how we can better meet the social needs of residents... More than 700 conversations with residents took place at community pop-up and outreach sessions. In addition to 37 completed stakeholder surveys, feedback was gathered at five facilitated stakeholder sessions with more than 60 representatives of social serving organizations… [And] more than 150 stakeholders were invited to a community stakeholder engagement session, of which 89 people representing community agencies, organizations, networks, City departments and City Council participated to validate… findings and provided insight on community social issues and ways to address them”.
At a high level, the report identified 10 social issues and/or opportunities:
Aging in place. As someone who works fulltime in a role focused on providing support for those aging in place, it was no surprise to see this issue make the top ten. Recommendations in the report surprisingly didn’t identify the stakeholders across Alberta that I work with - St. Albert is not facing anything unique apart from somewhat higher numbers of seniors than most Alberta municipalities, so it seems a bit weird that we’re not partnering outside of St. Albert. It also didn’t list social isolation as a critical risk associated with one’s ability to age in place, so I’m curious if that’s intended to fall under a different category. Future Councils need to understand the impacts our decisions - and the municipal services we offer - have on residents’ ability to age in place and we need to step up in terms of provincial advocacy.
Child and youth development: It was a bit of a gut-punch to see that child abuse, suicide, and sexual violence were the top three social issues identified by youth. With three kids in my home, and as the Council rep on the Youth Advisory committee for the last three years, I know the city could be doing a better job in supporting our kids.
Civic involvement and volunteerism: Many of us on Council have been volunteers, so we understand how civic engagement is critical for community connectedness. I’m not sure how we can do things differently to support this aspect of community life - Decreasing volunteerism is being seen across the province, and the reasons seem complex - but I’m curious to see if some ideas will be presented.
Community connectedness: We’re good at this!
Community safety: It was not a surprise that “hate crimes and incidents disproportionality affect racialized communities, ethnocultural communities, the 2SLGBTQIAP+ community, faith communities, people with lower incomes, people with disabilities, and the homeless.” St. Albert has a reputation for being one of the safest communities in the world, but there is more that we can do.
Family and gender-based violence: Solutions to the problem of domestic violence are complex.
Housing and homelessness: As people were trickling into downtown for the Rainmaker parade this year, a young man who’d been sleeping on the grass across from St. Albert Place collected his belongings and left. Homelessness has never been more visible in St. Albert and it’s a call to action. St. Albert has already done a great job in supporting the St. Thomas Street affordable housing project, but many more innitiatives are needed.
Inclusion, diversity, equity, accessibility: The report identifies that not everyone feels welcome, safe or accepted in St. Albert. Action items related to IDEA seem very high-level, so I’m curious to hear more during the report presentation.
Mental health and addictions: My partner is halfway through a Master’s in psychotherapy so it’s particularly no surprise that “community stakeholders… identified mental health as being in a crisis state in St. Albert.” I’ve seen the impact of this in schools, in discussions with residents, and through the challenges being faced in the non-profit service sector.
Poverty: The fact that “the St. Albert Food Bank… saw a 40% increase in demand for hampers from 2021 to 2022” is a sobering statistic. With 18% “of [St. Albert] households spending more than 30% of their income on shelter and utilities”, we know that there is a lot of need for supports in St. Albert.
The top barriers to accessing support were identified as a lack of awareness or understanding of social programs, services being oversubscribed, programs not being available in St. Albert, programs being too expensive, and not being able to get appointments for services. This council and the next should be considering how we can make meaningful changes to reduce these barriers. I look forward to this discussion and the implementation of next steps.
Youth Transitional Housing Feasibility Study Report
This is a request for a decision about whether to proceed with the next steps of a possible investment in housing for youth “experiencing housing precarity and to help reduce youth homelessness”. Depending on how we proceed, capital costs range from $1.1M for 4 beds to $5.2M for 16 beds, and from $.8M up to $1.5M in annual operating expenses. There are many different options for private/non-profit operators and grant funds to support a project that could be built on City land. If we go ahead, Admin will investigate interest from operators/partners and report back in Q2 next year. Following the Social Road Map discussion, I’d be shocked if this initiative - targeting youth, low-income persons, IDEA, etc. - wouldn’t go through.
This is a brief and incomplete overview of our meetings, with my personal comments sprinkled in - In no way are my opinions representative of the official direction of council or the City of St. Albert. Please let me know of any typos or errors. Members of the public can register to speak if they have information to present to council. Full agenda packages can be found on the stalbert.ca website.