Subsidized rental housing and homelessness under Alberta’s first UCP government

La version française de ce billet se trouve ici.

I’ve just written a lengthy book chapter about subsidized rental housing and homelessness in Alberta under the Jason Kenney government (2019-2022). Edited by Trevor Harrison and Ric Acuna, the book is titled Anger and Angst: Jason Kenney’s Legacy and Alberta’s Right. It is published by Black Rose Books and can be purchased here.

Five things to know:

1. On a per capita basis, Alberta has far less subsidized housing than the rest of Canada. Alberta’s rate of social housing—i.e., social housing as a percentage of all housing stock—is just 2.9%. For Canada as a whole, the figure is 4.2%. Put differently, Alberta has some catching up to do!

2. Political theatrics aside, the UCP has been a decent partner with the Government of Canada…at least on the housing file. Federal leadership on housing and homelessness in Canada saw a rebirth of sorts in 2017, when the Government of Canada (GoC) announced the long-awaited National Housing Strategy. Alberta signed its bilateral agreement with the GoC in March 2019, securing the maximum federal amounts available—and in order to secure these funds, the Government of Alberta had to provide a substantial amount of provincial funding.

3. In November 2021, the Government of Alberta (GoA) released a 10-year provincial housing strategy. Among other things, the strategy seeks to: reduce the GoA’s role in property ownership; increase mixed-income housing options; create more subsidized rental units; and provide more demand-side assistance (e.g., rent supplements). While laudable goals, most of the strategy’s commitments have yet to be funded—so the strategy is like a North Star without sufficient funding authority.

4. In October 2022, the UCP announced $63 million over two years in new funding for homelessness. This important new funding will help equalize funding between Edmonton and Calgary (Calgary had previously been receiving more per-capita homelessness funding). It will also help to expand the number of emergency shelter spaces for the winter months, and help all provincially-funded emergency shelters offer 24-7 access (many shelters had previously required that residents leave during the day).

5. The UCP has made harm reduction a wedge issue. Harm reduction focuses on reducing harm caused by drug use without requiring total abstinence. Harm reduction approaches include the distribution of clean syringes, safe inhalation kits and supervised consumption services. While not a central focus of this chapter, most harm reduction initiatives tend to target persons experiencing homelessness. The UCP has reduced access to harm reduction services, which has likely resulted in poorer health outcomes for vulnerable persons and premature loss of life.

In sum. Under Premier Jason Kenney, the UCP released a laudable housing strategy, albeit one with insufficient funding. Having said that, it did make impressive funding commitments pertaining to homelessness. Meanwhile, it turned harm reduction into a wedge issue, reversing much progress that had previously been made in Alberta.

I wish to thank Sylvia Regnier and Alex Tétreault for assistance with this blog post.