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The fate of a proposed 120-bed homeless shelter in a south-side industrial area is up for discussion at a public hearing at Edmonton’s city hall on Monday.
After getting permission in 2023 to run a temporary shelter at its logistics centre near Argyll Road and 75th Street, Hope Mission has applied to rezone the property in order to run a shelter out of the building permanently.
Senior director Tim Pasma said each year a new record is set for the number of people seeking emergency shelter and the charity has seen a significant need for emergency housing on the south side.
“We see this as a really critical need in Edmonton,” he told CBC News in an interview on Thursday.
He said Hope Mission is also trying to decentralize support services by adding shelter spaces outside the downtown core.
Organizations in Chinatown, where there is a high concentration of social services, support the charity’s south-side endeavour, Pasma said.
City administration is also supporting the project. In a planning report, the city says it received 33 responses to a notice about the rezoning application that was mailed in April. Staff said 32 of the responses were in opposition to the application, with 17 raising concerns about public safety, security and crime.
Sam Ranawaka, director at Alberta Wheels, a nearby business in the industrial park, told CBC News by email that there are significant problems in the area with attempted break-ins and drug dealing.
“We are concerned that bringing an emergency shelter into this industrial area will increase these incidents and create additional security and safety concerns for local businesses,” he said.
He said the shelter should be in an area designed to provide social services, not an industrial zone.
Pasma said Hope Mission has engaged with more than 40 businesses and groups in the area and held an open house to explain its vision.
He said the shelter is intended to be similar to the charity’s “calmer, quieter” CarePoint Wellness Centre, which opened in the west end in 2024.
Sarah Tickiq Long, a CarePoint Wellness Centre client who has been homeless since the beginning of May, said she appreciates being farther from dangers downtown, like drugs and violence.
Sarah Tickiq Long says shelters outside the downtown core can offer benefits for clients like her. (Craig Ryan/CBC)
Ahead of Monday’s hearing, she urged people to have compassion and empathy for the city’s most vulnerable.
“Not everybody who is homeless is somebody who is going to negatively impact the community,” she said.
Pasma said Hope Mission secured money from the province to run the shelter but would need to renovate it before it could open, perhaps as early as this winter.