The Pulse: July 11, 2022

Mayor Amarjeet Sohi says he will engage with the province to secure funding for the new Healthy Streets Operations Centre in Chinatown and report back to council when it returns on Aug. 15. But our City Hall observers at Speaking Municipally doubt he will get the $18 million over four years that the initiative is expected to cost.

Refusing to fund a plan arising from its demand that Edmonton act on crime and disorder may not seem like a good look for the provincial government, "but when have the optics ever looked great for the UCP in Edmonton?" said co-host Troy Pavlek on Episode 186 of Taproot's civic affairs podcast.

Sohi connected this funding request to the inadequacy of provincial support to address homelessness, saying that Edmonton gets less per-capita funding in this area than seven other Alberta cities. But that argument seemed questionable to co-host Mack Male, given that the bulk of the funding for the operations centre is to pay for 36 police officers.

"I don't think this operations centre has very much to do with ending homelessness, certainly not if we're hiring police officers," Male said. "Their job is not to get people into housing."

Council also decided not to run small encampments for those without a place to live this summer, after considering a proposal for three sites of about 20 tents each that would have cost $2 million for the summer. None of the temporary housing options considered will happen this year, and all of them are costly, though repurposing hotels seems to have the most promise, with the cost of $4.2 million for 200 units.

Male agreed with Christel Kjenner, the director responsible for affordable housing and homelessness, that the best solution is to fund permanent housing.

"It's the most cost-effective," he said. "That's what we should be doing."

Council heads into the summer break with much unfinished business, as procedural wrangling left several motions on the order paper.

• A backlog in police background information checks has resulted in staff shortages for Green Shacks across Edmonton, which means some have been closed or had hours modified. "The Green Shacks team have been creative in changing full-day locations to half-day and have staffed locations with one instead of the usual two people until more folks on-boarded," said City of Edmonton spokesperson Christopher Webster. "But the only way to truly mitigate right now is to roll location openings as background checks are fulfilled."
• The Edmonton Elks have partnered with Windspeaker Media to broadcast the team's July 22 home game against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in Cree on CFWE 98.5 FM. The "Indigenous Celebration" game will also feature the Canadian national anthem performed in nêhiyawêwin (Cree), an Indigenous performance at half-time, and the game's coin toss by Grand Chief of Treaty Six First Nations George Arcand Jr.
• In an interview conducted earlier this year for EDify magazine's summer issue, Mayor Amarjeet Sohi said his priorities include downtown recovery and solving homelessness. "The way our downtown is, I feel my heart breaks when I go out there," he said. "My heart breaks to see the pain out there, people struggling to make ends meet, and people sleeping on the street… and that sense of helplessness."
• Several city councillors and other Edmonton leaders were in Calgary this weekend for the start of the Stampede. "It's been so incredible to see such a strong #yeg presence here representing and advocating for our city, building relationships between our governments and cities, and so much learning!" tweeted Puneeta McBryan, executive director of the Edmonton Downtown Business Association.
• Friday's nationwide Rogers outage affected Edmonton transit, with real-time information unavailable but no impacts on trip planning or other tools. Service was restored on Saturday.
• Efforts by Uber to secure the support of elected officials and a favourable op-ed ahead of its launch in Edmonton in December 2014 were noted as part of international reporting on a trove of leaked internal company records spanning 2013 to 2017.
• Alberta could be on the verge of a seventh pandemic wave due to the highly contagious BA.5 variant of COVID-19. "Everyone was kind of gearing up for more of a fall surge. But the whole BA.5 situation has opened up the possibility of more of a summer surge," said Dr. Lynora Saxinger, an infectious disease specialist with the University of Alberta.

This week offers a tea-blending with local plants, advice on e-commerce, opportunities to explore social innovation and health innovation, and talks about a couple of pieces of public art.

• July 12 and 13, 6:30pm: Local Plants with Mother Earth Essentials, presented by the Edmonton Downtown Business Association
• July 13, 1pm: How to Start Selling on Amazon from the Business Link
• July 13, 5pm: Making of a Monument: Public Artist's Presentation at the Alberta Craft Council
• July 14, 10am: Engaging the Ecosystem: Conscious Change-making, presented by AB Seed
• July 14, 11:30am: Health Innovators' Meetup: Picnic at the Park from the Health Innovation Hub
• July 14, 4:30pm: Artist Talk with Sandra Bromley and Wallis Kendal on Collateral Damage at the Edmonton Public Library

Find even more listings in Taproot's weekly roundups.

Photo: Artist Ritchie Velthuis will discuss his process for creating SCTV Monument, the sculpture of Bob and Doug McKenzie in the Ice District, along with other clay models of characters from the series. (Alberta Craft Council)