Skip to content

$25-million funding application for street-involved housing would strain staff, city council told

2205cityhall41.jpg Simon Whitehouse/NNSL photoYellowknife City Hall
2205cityhall41.jpg Simon Whitehouse/NNSL photo Yellowknife City Hall

The city can apply for a potential $25 million for permanent supportive housing for Yellowknife's street-involved population, but, as council heard on Monday, staff are concerned about the workload and juggling other projects. 

Mayor and council spent much of Monday’s governance and priorities committee discussing the enticing prospect of accessing money from a $1-billion federal fund called the Rapid Housing Initiative that is geared toward solving housing shortages for vulnerable persons. 

"I am concerned about our capacity on the ground to be able to deliver a project of this magnitude,” Yellowknife senior administrative officer Sheila Bassi-Kellett says in regards to a $25-million supportive housing initiative.
NNSL file photo

However, council heard that there are some major projects underway for city staff and while $25 million could solve a lot of homeless problems, it will require a lot of time and resources from management to make it a reality. 

Senior administrative officer Sheila Bassi-Kellett said the city is focused on large multi-year projects at the moment such as the aquatic centre and a water-intake line. 

“I think you're hearing my ambivalence because I'm very much in favor of having permanent supportive housing within Yellowknife,” Bassi-Kellett said. “I think that's a gap that we're seeing right now. I am concerned about our capacity on the ground to be able to deliver a project of this magnitude.”

Some councillors sympathized with the idea of adding to staff's workload.

Coun. Julian Morse said it doesn't seem clear that the city will be able to manage a project of this size given other ongoing projects. He added that other orders of government or organizations in the city could be applying for similar funding.

"I guess my my overall feeling is that this seems like a great idea," Morse said. "It seems like something our community needs and, of course, I'd be supportive of that. It's that there appear to be kind of some potential downsides that we can't foresee that I have difficulty with."

Others, however, were more enthusiastic about moving ahead with the application as the issue is one of high priority for the city. 

"If somebody wants to give me $25 million to help solve problems, there's no downside, there's no burden to be had," says Coun. Niels Konge.
NNSL file photo

“The reality is if somebody says, hey, here's $25 million here to help you solve one of the biggest problems you have in your community, that becomes the priority,” Coun. Niels Konge said. “We have councillors using words like ‘downsides’ and ‘burden.’ I don't know, but if somebody wants to give me $25 million to help solve problems, there's no downside, there's no burden to be had. It's just a matter of, OK, you know, here's the long list of things that we have to do and this just gets moved up to the front. We go through the application process”

Like Konge, Coun. Robin Williams is intent on seeing this initiative advance.

“I think this is an absolute no-brainer. You know, certainly you're pumping $25 million worth of infrastructure spending, not on the backs of the municipal taxpayer. I think it would be a huge win,” he said. 

Most councillors agree that finding permanent supportive housing with programming is one tool to assist the homeless and street-involved population in Yellowknife, based on the the city's 10-year plan to end homelessness.

The municipality has until Dec. 31 to apply for the federal funding and wants to purchase and retrofit a downtown building that would provide supportive housing.

The city is expecting to hear by the end of March 2021 as to whether it is successful and then construction is to be done by end of next year.

The city plans to hold a special council meeting before the end of December to finalize a vote on moving ahead with the application. 

Mayor Rebecca Alty said there is one more council meeting on Dec. 7 but council is preferring to focus on passing the budget that night, so the special council meeting will likely have to be held at another date.

Upon purchase, the city would launch a competitive process for a contractor to retrofit the building and then, in partnership with an non-government organization, oversee programming and operations of the facility.

Tenants living in the building would pay affordable monthly rent to provide a level of revenue.

In the past the city has done project work on Lynn's Place and Bailey House and turned over services to a non-government organization to manage.

Council directed administration to develop an application to maximize the likelihood of success based on the scoring criteria, according to federal guidelines. 

“There are a few different options for a retrofit or a modular construction option, so council is saying to not necessarily go for the dollar figure ($25 million) but with the application that will be most likely to receive the most points according to the national housing scoring grid,” Alty said, noting that applications can score higher and be more successful depending on various factors such as who owns the land, whether renovations can be done in three months versus six months or a year.

She added that while the use of staff time and resources is a concern, depending on the project identified, demands on municipal employees could vary.