Lethbridge faced many challenges and victories in the past year. One particular challenge that stood out to Mayor Blaine Hyggen in reflection is homelessness.
“I think how we have dealt with homelessness, addictions — you learn as you go and you try to continually collaborate with other communities,” Hyggen said. He added he sits on the Mid-Size Cities Mayors’ Caucus, where the topic comes up often.
“Some are maybe further along on the process of homelessness and some maybe don’t struggle with that so to be able to sit down and collaborate with those other mayors and find out what they have done and not try to reinvent the wheel,” Hyggen said. “If it was easy we wouldn’t be in the situation we are in and so often if something doesn’t work, it’s that definition of insanity you know — we definitely want to make sure we try something else.”
Hyggen said he does not believe there is anything he would change about the way council dealt with the issue in 2022 and he will continue to work with the province and social service agencies in the community to better the situation.
BACKGROUND: Homelessness more than doubles in Lethbridge since 2018
The ongoing shortage of doctors was a big focus of Lethbridge city council in the past year. Hyggen said though this is a provincial mandate, he wants to continue to work to bring new doctors to the city.
“We still want to be able to not only attract new doctors, but to retain the ones that we’ve got so by building a community that they can raise their families in,” he said. “There’s no communities our size that have two post secondary institutions that are so well known so to be able to expand on the knowledge that they have at the university and the college and get more training for doctors within Lethbridge I think is something that would be great.”
BACKGROUND: Retention key to stop ‘bleeding of physicians’ working in Alberta: Medical Association
A standout victory that stood out for Hyggen was hosting the Tim Hortons Brier Men’s curling championship at the Enmax Centre in March.
“We heard throughout the pandemic on how the service industry, the hotels, the restaurants were struggling and some of the challenges that they had. Well what was great about that was you couldn’t find a hotel room,” Hyggen said. “It was just a great way to showcase our community and across not just Alberta, Canada, built the world and so it was great and in talking to some of the organizers of the Briar, ones from the Canadian curling and stuff, had mentioned that Lethbridge is just such an inviting community — the volunteers are amazing and something I have always been so delighted with is the volunteerism we have within Lethbridge.”
BACKGROUND: Brier curling championships generated millions in economic activity for Lethbridge: report
Hyggen said the creation of a health roundtable was another victory. It was established late in the year and Hyggen said it will make a difference in solving health related issue in the community, by having decision makers sitting at one table.
“It has got groups from the provincial government, representation from the federal government, Alberta Health Services, Blood Tribe Department of Health, City of Lethbridge — so we can all be at that same table as we work on solutions or challenges that we have in our community,” Hyggen said. These challenges include homelessness, mental health and addictions and doctor recruitment.
BACKGROUND: Partnership between Blood Tribe, Lethbridge and the province looks for healthcare solutions