As city administration prepares a Downtown Action Plan, Puneeta McBryan, the executive director of the Edmonton Downtown Business Association, says the Downtown Core Patrol service that her organization contracts to Hiregood, a company that employs people with lived experience with being unhoused, needs more money.
The Downtown Action Plan goes to the city's Urban Planning Committee on May 13. It includes reviews of the Capital City Downtown Plan, the Downtown Vibrancy Strategy, the Downtown Investment Plan by a group of non-city entities, and more.
McBryan said she hopes it yields funding for the Downtown Core Patrol, a service that responds to safety issues downtown and tries to prevent problems before they happen.
"(The Downtown Core Patrol) was the result of years of conversations with our members and our board and the community about how many challenges we were having," McBryan told Taproot about the initial nighttime program that launched in November 2022. "We basically decided (that) emergency services are obviously not able to be out and about the way we need eyes and ears out on the streets overnight."
In 2024, what used to be called the Downtown Night Patrol & Outreach Services responded to 3,221 incidents, of which 1,088 were wellness checks. The other biggest numbers were for garbage (595), property trespassing and disturbance (550), and property vandalism (549). The patrol was initially staffed by one private security guard and one Hiregood team member. The City of Edmonton's Downtown Vibrancy Fund invested $400,000 to pilot the program from November 2022 to November 2023, while the EDBA spent approximately $100,000 that year on staff and "other expenses," McBryan said.
"(It) was made very clear to us from the Downtown Vibrancy team that it was not to be ongoing operational funding," McBryan said. "The pilot did everything we needed it to — to prove that there was value in us providing this service. We did learn a lot along the way. We didn't see a lot of value in the security guard component of it."
The EDBA got half of the $400,000 for its second year from the Downtown Vibrancy Fund. Roughly $80,000 of that went to a daytime patrol pilot that lasted from late October 2024 through January 2025. Those funds ran out at the end of 2024, so the EDBA now funds the core patrol out of its operating budget. The patrol is now made up of two units per night, from midnight to 8am, which comprise two Hiregood staff each.
"It really feels like the city should be paying for part of that," McBryan said, adding that the city has denied two applications by the business association to the Community Safety and Well-being Grant Program.
Hiregood is also no longer the subcontractor for Bee-Clean Building Maintenance, which hired a different subcontractor to run the washroom attendant program in 2024, the City of Edmonton told Taproot in an email.
Hiregood CEO Jodi Phelan said that boiled down to a salary dispute. "We were getting paid only $23.50 per person to do the work," Phelan told Taproot. "We have a lot of staff, and we were starting to lose money, so we couldn't maintain it. We're not a profit-driven business, but we have to be able to sustain what we do to keep doing what we do."
As the City of Edmonton prepares to receive a Downtown Action Plan in May, the leaders of the Edmonton Downtown Business Association and Hiregood said they want more support for the Downtown Core Patrol and LRT safety. (Supplied)
The City of Edmonton said it is at Bee-Clean's discretion to work with a subcontractor of its choosing. It added that recent policy changes "ensure that all contracts for services include a requirement to pay a living wage to all employees working in City facilities."
Work to review existing contracts and agreements to reflect the new policies is underway, the city added.
Phelan said she thinks downtown revitalization priorities could expand in a LinkedIn post when funding for OEG projects in the ICE District was in the news.
"Downtown Edmonton is at a turning point," she wrote. "With significant funds being allocated to revitalize the core, the focus should not only be on infrastructure and aesthetics but also on real, lasting solutions that address safety, cleanliness, and community well-being."
Few companies are not looking for further investment. Phelan said the reason Hiregood is a solid option for downtown is because so many of her staff have been unhoused, know what people in distress are going through, and instill feelings of safety.
"If you take someone who's on the street, who maybe causes a lot of the social disorder, we get them here, they start working, we mentor them, they're gainfully employed, they get housed, they have a peer group, and they're successful," Phelan told Taproot. "You have less vandalism, less police calls, less ambulance calls — what could be better than that?"
Phelan, who is also the CEO of Four Directions Financial, which offers banking and other services to people with barriers to financial services such as a lack of identification, expanded Hiregood to Calgary to operate a washroom attendant program for the city in 2023. The City of Calgary pays for this, and recently said the program will expand this year.
"(The difference between Edmonton and Calgary) has been like night and day, although I love Edmonton," Phelan said. "Buy Social Canada has really supported the City of Calgary on social procurement, which is critical in doing these kinds of things."
Phelan said she'd like Hiregood to operate washroom program in Edmonton again and receive more support for the patrol, although maybe it's time for a new project instead of the washroom program. She said her staff are "getting into security." (McBryan said she's found greater success with Hiregood than with any private security company.)
"I want to be able to do more here, because we are literally taking people who are in front of the whole mission, and we're getting them gainfully employed," Phelan said.
One thing Phelan would like to do is staff LRT stations with Hiregood employees. The city is considering a number of safety changes at LRT stations, including increased transit peace officer presence. Coun. Anne Stevenson said she would like to see a "holistic approach" to safety that includes more than just peace officers and private guards. Her idea sounds a lot like what Hiregood does.
"What I would love to see is what I would call a safety attendant," Stevenson told CBC. She said this role would be a "three-in-one combo" that would "be the best value for the investments we're making." The three parts would be helping people navigate the system, respond to disruptions, and do some light cleaning.
The EDBA also employs Hiregood for its Downtown Shine program, a litter-removal service that collected 1,451 bags full of trash in 2022. McBryan thinks Hiregood has the potential to do much more. If she had a blank cheque to offer the company, she would enlist it to run the province's Navigation and Support Centre, which aims to consolidate support services for people who are unhoused. One advocate told Taproot in 2024 that the centre has caused "abject misery" for its users.
"I think the province's intention with the navigation centre is bang on, frankly," McBryan said. "I think having a central facility that has all of the services that a person would need if they don't have a fixed address, if they're struggling from addiction, if they don't have ID, if they need to get on income support — all these different problems that people have, there should absolutely be one place that they could walk in and have all of those needs met. It's wild to me that that didn't exist before."