The Lethbridge Housing Authority (LHA) says it is looking to make a fundamental shift in the way supportive housing is delivered and measured in the city. It took over from the City of Lethbridge as the group in charge of allocating funding to service providers in April and since then, created a service plan and strategic goals.
The authority presented an update to the city’s economic standing policy committee on June 21, where CEO Robin James pointed out changes will mostly come when new contracts are signed with service providers.
“We committed to continuity of service when we took it over so all of the contracts have remained the same, the significant difference you will see is when the contracts go out in the late fall of this year for the next funding cycle — they will all have very measurable goals in them,” she said. “We hope to make a large fundamental shift with that next funding cycle.”
James said 25 units of supportive housing at Castle Apartments should be operational within a month and the housing authority is working on another project in north Lethbridge, which would be 30 more purpose-built units, which she said will offer appropriate housing for clients.
“What we have started to do is a fundamental shift away from the housing first philosophy and into a philosophy with appropriate housing. What we looked at on the data is that we are not seeing the results we would like to see from the housing first way of doing things. We are seeing higher rates of repeat clients, case management becomes more difficult,” she said. “Where we are seeing we are getting results is when we put the client in a housing complex that is actually appropriate to the need of that person so the supports are in reach versus outreach.”
LHA will apply for direct control zoning for the new project and James said she expects it to be in front of council in September.
“We are also moving away from the model of permanent supportive housing. We are moving to supportive housing. We are going to look at opportunities to provide different types of supportive housing based on the need of the client,” she said. “We need to make sure that we are providing housing that is built for the client instead of trying to make the client built into the housing.”
James said LHA wants the bottom part of the building to be a commercial space with a family doctor and a pharmacy for both clients and the community. “They don’t have to go out in the community in order to get their meds—they can actually get everything they need right there,” she said.
James said LHA will hold open houses to talk to community members about the new project in July. The committee accepted the report as information.