Mapping out housing needs in the province to address the unique needs of Albertan municipalities

The Town of Whitecourt will gather information as part of a province-wide housing needs assessment. At a recent council meeting, Chelsea Grande, Director of Community Services, explained that the assessment was through the Ministry of Alberta Seniors and Housing and was part of the Stronger Foundations Plan released in November last year.

“The Stronger Foundations Plan is Alberta’s ten-year strategy to improve and expand affordable housing. In that plan, the Alberta Government had committed to developing a standardized Affordable Housing Needs Assessment to support municipalities and the province to better understand local needs. The assessment will offer a standardized and comprehensive approach for the province for evidence-based decision-making,” she explained.

Grande said the province asked that municipalities carry out the assessment on their behalf. “They are stating that it is a voluntary assessment but may be a condition of future funding that is released. The town did identify this as a “NOW” item in their strategic plan, and administration has started to gather some of the standardized statistical data that will be required to complete the plan from one of their draft templates that may change.”

Grande explained that the assessment portal would be available by the end of summer, enabling the Town of Whitecourt to start inputting information. A prior housing needs assessment done locally in 2007 enabled the community to access funding. The hope is that the same flow of funding will happen again. “The province did release funding based on assessments, and the town was successful in receiving three years of funding to pass on to non-profit agencies to address some of the housing needs that were identified in that plan. Also, a private developer was provided direct funding from the province to carry out a portion of that plan. We are hoping that something similar happens again. Once the assessment is completed, we are hoping that a grant funding program will be released that can help our local community address some of the housing needs in our community based on the assessment.”

Town staff are starting to talk with local agencies and get data together before the portal opens. Councillor Paul Chauvet asked if the Lac Ste Anne Foundation would be part of the conversation. Grande said yes. “They will be one of the agencies involved in this along with our other housing providers in the community. We also look at market rentals and so forth, so it is a complex assessment of everything in the community at this point in time.”

Grande explained that the portal wouldn’t open until the province received federal census data. “They are getting the feds to divide out by municipality, so, unfortunately, that will affect how the assessment is completed, and they don’t have that information quite ready yet. Once it is ready, they will forward us a password or log in so that we can get in there and start working.”

Councillor Tara Baker asked for clarification on who would be leading the charge. “In my experience, and talking to other municipalities, it’s always better off if it’s municipality led versus not. I’m hearing that we are taking the lead on the assessment and bringing others to work with us. We aren’t bringing in a third party to do it for us.” CAO Peter Smyl confirmed it was a municipal function that would include community partners. “Even for additional grants and anything else, it’s important municipalities to take the lead and push that through,” he said.

Councillor Baker then asked who would be part of the discussion. “How is it determined who is being asked to have the discussion of the needs in the community? There are different organizations that provide different services for our community.” Grande explained that they would work with “all of the agencies in the community that provide housing services.” This will include non-profits, the private sector, and others.

A letter included in Council’s package from Josephine Pon, Minister of Seniors and Housing, stated, “we will use the needs assessments to help target funding to address the unique local needs of a community. I encourage all municipalities to use the housing needs assessment to support long-term community planning, coordination and decision-making on new projects. Collaboration between municipalities, local housing management bodies, housing operators, non-profit organizations and other housing operators is encouraged in order to complete the assessment.”

She added that the release of Stronger Foundations last year “maps out the thoughtful changes needed to provide safe, stable, affordable housing for 25,000 more households to serve a total of 82,000.” Council voted unanimously to accept the update as information and will be updated further as the portal opens and information starts to flow into it.