Author: Dustin Cook
Edmonton has been leading the fight in eliminating homelessness across Canada and the federal government is hoping new funding will allow other cities to follow suit.
The Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness (CAEH) will receive $885,000 from the government’s homeless partnering strategy that will support 38 communities across the country in the 20,000 Homes Campaign, Edmonton Centre MP Randy Boissonnault announced on a snowy Friday morning at the Bissell Centre.
“How are the people living rough coping with the snow this morning? We need to build and we need the data to know where to build and who to build for,” said Boissonnault on the data collection, research initiatives and training the money will go toward.
CAEH president Tim Richter said these additional funds will provide training and support to 30 additional communities and the eight pilot communities — including Edmonton — involved in the campaign. The goal is to end chronic homelessness in 20 of the communities and house 20,000 of the country’s most vulnerable homeless by July 1, 2020.
Edmonton has been on the front lines of combating the crisis, Richter said, and leads all major Canadian cities through a reduction of homelessness by 45 per cent in the last nine years.
“There’s still a lot of work left to do obviously, but I think Edmonton is well on its way to being the first city in Canada to end chronic homelessness and the first city in Canada to end all homelessness,” he said. “They’ve pioneered a lot of the key strategies that we need … and they’re achieving some success.”