Outreach groups in Calgary are still grappling with the reality that come April of next year, they may be dealing with a major funding shortfall.
Already, the Calgary Homeless Foundation (CHF) has had to make an eight per cent cut — which equates to $3.2 million — to its operating budget, meaning a shift in focus to funding only essential services.
That means organizations the CHF funds, like the Downtown Outreach Addictions Partnership (DOAP) Team and the Alpha House, need to make immediate changes to the way they operate on the front lines on Calgary’s streets.
For the DOAP team, which helps those struggling with addictions and transportation, it means paring down its services to essential transports: getting people out of bad situations and — whether it’s on the streets or in a shelter — into housing with services, provided by CHF.
The loss will still have a large impact, especially when it comes to City of Calgary services, according to CHF CEO Diana Krecsy.
Krescy said the organization first looked internally at any changes it could make to things like program budgets and was able to find about $2 million in savings. But then they had to shift focus and find another $1 million from the street level.
Adam Melnyk with Alpha House Outreach said the funding cut that’s coming in September is one the DOAP Team is able to cover, but the real change will happen in April if the money isn’t restored.
“It’s a challenge that we haven’t faced for quite a while, so I think our goal is to see what options are out there,” Melnyk said.
“People know the importance of the team, the significance of the work that we do, the pressure that we take off of emergency services like CPS, EMS, bylaw and transit. So I think we have some time to figure out where the funding should be coming from.”
Melnyk said cutting a program like the DOAP Team will have a large impact on many other essential city first responders, like police and EMS, whose time should be “spent with serial criminal and medical issues that are important, rather than social issues.”
He said by making cuts and reducing the DOAP Team’s operations, the government is putting the pressure back on emergency services.
“I think the service has become essential where people see it as an option,” Melnyk said.
“We have clients that end up on the other side of the city that don’t have a way to get back and stop citizens saying, ‘Hey can you call the DOAP team to come help me?’ I think it’ll impact the whole city.”
Krescy said programs like the DOAP Team and Alpha House should be seen as core infrastructure, like police, EMS and transit, and should be funded accordingly.
“You’re not cutting programs that aren’t working. You’re actually cutting programs that are working,” she said.
According to the CHF, the province said the cuts are because the government is working with a “temporary interim budget” as a result of the previous government not passing a 2019 budget. It said the changes were not permanent.
Global News’ request for comment from the Government of Alberta was not returned by time of publishing.
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