City looks to turn hotels into housing
Two Edmonton hotels could soon be converted into 138 units of permanent, supportive housing through a $21.6-million investment.
The city is proposing the two medium-sized hotels be converted into housing next year through the federal government's $14.9-million Rapid Housing Initiative investment announced in July as well as an additional $6.7 million from the city approved by council Monday.
The locations of these hotels haven't been publicly disclosed by the city, but director of affordable housing and homelessness Christel Kjenner said public engagement with surrounding neighbourhoods will take place once the plan is submitted to the federal government.
These additional units will take the city closer to its goal of creating 600 supportive housing residences by the end of 2022, Kjenner said, noting there is still a lot of work to do as more people have entered homelessness since the beginning of the COVID -19 pandemic.
Currently, there about 2,600 people experiencing homelessness in Edmonton, an increase of about 1,000 people from the same time last year.
“I think it's fair to say that we've suffered some setbacks with respect to our overall progress towards ending homelessness but with programs like the Rapid Housing initiative, there is hope that setback will be temporary,” Kjenner said.
A plan to create 222 additional units through two large hotel conversions remains in front of the federal government, but Mayor Don Iveson said he's concerned the city will miss out on this additional funding of $35.4 million if the province doesn't step up to fund the annual operating costs of embedded services.
In the first round of funding earlier this year, the city wasn't approved for 480 units with one of the reasons being lack of operating support. If these units are approved, the city would need to finance the additional $7.3 million.
An updated amount required to operate the 360 units hasn't been finalized but in a letter sent to the province in July, Iveson said the city would need $5.9 million annually for five already-approved projects.