'Not even our project': Saskatoon city spends more than $5 million on homelessness with no provincial commitment

Saskatoon city council held a special meeting Thursday morning to address homelessness years into the future, but frustration grew throughout the meeting as the province was absent from the conversation.

“This is not something that is in our jurisdiction. And this is not even our project. And yet here we are being the ones to move the ball as quickly as possible," Ward 10 councillor Zach Jeffries said.

“The folks who are not housed right now in these cold temperatures deserve the same urgency from the province as they have had from our administration here today."

City council unanimously voted to add $4.4 million in spending to create a community encampment response plan, matching one-time funding of the same amount from the federal government via the Unsheltered Homelessness and Encampments Initiative.

Administration says creating a plan will allow the city to apply for the funding with the intention of providing a multiyear plan "and include buy-in from local community partners towards a response that would provide a lasting positive impact to improve conditions for people currently experiencing unsheltered homelessness," a city report said.

The plan is designed in six phases, with some of the work already completed or begun.

Over those phases, the city aims to expand its mobile outreach service, invest in a permanent emergency shelter, create 30 new supportive housing units with a community space that can be used for warming up and cooling down, and complete a feasibility study for a future community navigation centre.

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Throughout the meeting, many specifics weren’t available, but administration wanted the city’s commitment to proceed. Director of planning and development Leslie Anderson said conversations have evolved plenty over the last few weeks, and her office understands current funding wouldn’t be enough to complete the build and that more work, and potentially further funding applications may be needed in the future.

“I realize there is quite a significant amount of information before you today included in the proposal. And that this has all been developed very, very rapidly," Anderson said.

Councillors asked administration about potential risk and operational funding after the funding is used up. Anderson said if the application is successful, the supportive housing and community space would need to stay operational for 20 years.

"It's a bit ambiguous because the contracts aren't in place to really tighten that up," city manager Jeff Jorgenson said.

“The idea, the hope is that really there won't be any operating costs to the city. That would be our goal is that there is no long-term operating costs at all to the city.”

Anderson said she recently learned the city must spend the federal funding by March 31, 2026, which creates an extremely tight timeline for construction to begin and end.

The city says due to the high proportion of homeless people that are Indigenous in Saskatoon, a partnership with a First Nation organization or government will be prioritized.

In a separate development at the special meeting, council agreed to add $360,000 in spending to further prepare a building on Pacific Avenue that was approved to become a temporary shelter last fall.

Recent discussions with the province and The Mustard Seed, who will be operating the facility, made the city realize the building is far from being ready to be a shelter after the province committed $250,000 towards renovations.

The building is currently an unoccupied storage space, and city documents say the "mechanical and electrical upgrades necessary to house people at 210 Pacific (Avenue) "are extensive."

"As-is, the existing building has limited heat and no ventilation. The minimum required mechanical scope of work includes heating and ventilation systems for sleeping and plumbing for laundry, showers, and additional washrooms. These critical system upgrades constitute the most significant expenditure of the project but ensure the building can be safely occupied," the report said.

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The city and the province are at odds about jurisdiction. The city approved the funding with no guarantee it will be reimbursed, because the province feels it's the city's job to make the building as ready as possible.

"As owners of the facility, the City of Saskatoon is project managing the renovations to the building with the Government of Saskatchewan having earmarked $250,000 toward the cost of required renovations," a statement from the Ministry of Social Services said.

While the city feels it has fulfilled its job of finding a location, and social matters are a provincial responsibility. Numerous councillors spoke about their frustrations stepping up to fund something out of its jurisdiction.

"I understand that council is frustrated, and I think that we are taking the job very seriously from the standpoint that our residents expect us to be moving forward in a manner that is actually starting to solve the issues that we face," Mayor Cynthia Block said.

“I would just be very surprised if anybody who is employed with the provincial government as an elected official did not hear that exact same sentiment on the doors where they knocked as well.”

The city hopes to issue tenders for construction in the coming days and have construction complete by March, which is roughly three months later than originally intended.