Saskatoon Mayor Charlie Clark shared his state of the city address Tuesday afternoon, highlighting the city’s plans to address homelessness, mental health and addictions.
“We see the crisis of homelessness, addictions, and mental health and intergenerational trauma escalating,” Clark said at TCU Place Tuesday. “This challenge will be critical to get right if we are going to be a city that meets our potential.”
Clark noted that city authorities are seeing double the amount of homeless people on Saskatoon streets compared to this time last year.
“First, we need to reduce the number of people getting evicted and reduce the barriers of getting rehoused,” Clark said.
He said that the re-implementation of the Saskatchewan Income Support program is the first step the city wants to take to end homelessness.
“Second, there is nowhere to take people with complex needs,” Clark said, calling on the province for an additional 100 beds for people in the city with complex needs. “And third, there is a complete lack of coordination in funding between federal and provincial dollars.”
Clark said this creates disjoints in the funding of programs with no ability to measure outcomes or focus on addressing the largest gaps, allowing people to fall through.
The Saskatoon Tribal Council’s Emergency Wellness Centre is operating at full capacity at its new location in the Fairhaven neighbourhood, but Clark said it isn’t enough.
“We’ve seen an escalation in people who are most gripped with addictions and mental health that is putting tremendous pressure on the tribal council, on organizations that are trying to provide support for these folks.”
Clark said that during discussions with tribal chief Mark Arcand, he has realized that there are safety issues affecting service providers and a need to increase capacity.
People with more complex needs are sometimes not allowed at the Wellness Centre if it is already full of families.
“There is a complete lack of places to take those individuals,” Clarke said, explaining that this is why Fairhaven residents have seen more of Saskatoon’s homeless population congregating within the neighbourhood.
The city is exploring options of having smaller facilities spread around Saskatoon but doesn’t know where they would be located.
“There is no place in the city that people seem at this point to welcome and say I want to have these facilities around where I am,” said Clark, adding that wherever the facilities are built, there will be concerns from the community.
“The challenge is the way that funding works for shelters is they can become more sustainable is if they have a higher number of people for economies of scale,” said Clark. “It helps with a funding program, but it doesn’t help with the impacts and to create the best environment to get people stabilized and into housing.”
Despite the challenge that the city is facing with regard to the homeless population, the mayor said the city has come a long way in the last decade, creating new neighbourhoods and amenities.
“When you add rare earths, the Canadian Centre for Pandemic Research, and the importance of the crops that we are producing here and the opportunities that we have to partner with Indigenous communities to create a whole new era for the city and the province. It’s remarkable to be here at this time.”
The mayor also touched on the progress the new downtown district and entertainment centre is making and how it will bring more growth to the city of Saskatoon.
“The discussion we are having with the public right now is to really understand what people think is key to the district to help make sure it is a place that attracts everyone,” Clark said.
He noted that it was imperative that the planning on this centre happen now, and not 10 years into the future.
“If we do nothing, then we will be putting the future city at risk economically,” said Clark. He suggested the possibility of having to replace the SaskTel Centre in the future without the proper funding.
“We have to recognize that whatever we do will have consequences.”
Clark still insisted that the centre won’t impact property taxes for Saskatoon residents.