Mayoral hopefuls pitch fixes to homelessness

With the civic election just one day away, one mayoral candidate wants to talk about homelessness.

Over the past few weeks, Jim Elliott has been thinking about Regina’s homelessness issue and, on Monday, he claimed nothing has happened over the past four years to help the situation in the city.

“If you expect homelessness to be lessened under Michael Fougere, you will be waiting a long time,” Elliott said in his press release. “Housing, especially vulnerable populations including the homeless need strategic interventions, not platitudes and warm thoughts.”

He said Regina needs a strong leader who is willing to put in the work to actually end homelessness in Regina.

“The role the mayor and city council has played, so far, hasn’t really worked, and I don’t necessarily think we are going to see much difference moving forward,” said Elliott. “What I think many people don’t realize is how effective we could be at dealing with this issue if, in fact, we made it a higher priority.”

Elliott said that if he is elected he plans to do an inventory of empty lots, along with a complete assessment of current rental properties, give notice to those neglecting properties, and also work with landlords wishing to do better.

Fougere, who is seeking a second term, acknowledged the seriousness of the issue of homelessness and said work is being done at the municipal level.

He said dealing with landlords and property owners is a provincial responsibility.

“It’s not the role of the city government to expand its responsibility,” said Fougere. “It is to make sure that the federal government and the province, who have the primary role for housing, that they retain that responsibility and that they don’t download it to municipalities.”

Fougere said in his first term he tackled homelessness head-on and plans to continue that work.

The city has an advisory committee that deals directly with Ottawa’s national housing strategy.

“I think we are on the right track here, we just need to focus attention and more resources to dealing with the issue itself,” said Fougere.

Mayoral candidate Tony Fiacco believes the city can play an integral role in this area based on what other cities have done. He said others tackled homelessness head-on, and by being aggressive they were able to end homelessness.

He said that if he is elected he would take a closer look at what those cities did and see what could be applied here in Regina.