| The city is not allowing any new social agencies to relocate or expand in the East Village leading to questions about whether the city’s redevelopment plans for the area are taking precedence over marginalized Calgarians.
Two social agencies that are trying to find new headquarters – Inn From the Cold and the Alex Community Health Centre – have recently been told they can’t move into the area. The city has also rejected Calgary Drop-In Centre plans to build a sobering centre next to its homeless shelter in the East Village.
Dermot Baldwin, executive director of the Calgary Drop-In Centre, is highly critical of the new city policy.
"It’s unmitigated garbage. I think the assumption is that we’re dealing with agencies that… have no power and no entitlement and don’t belong, but we’re going to make everything possible for business, everything possible for wealthy people who can buy extraordinarily expensive places in the East Village or the core, and that’s fine.
"I don’t hear a single agency complaining about the development of business or of high-cost housing. They just want a place to work from," he says.
Baldwin says the city seems to be adopting the attitude that "social agencies don’t really count."
"I think that’s a sickening philosophy to have," he says.
Inn From the Cold, which houses homeless families in churches across the city, lost its location on 7 Avenue S.W. on March 15. The organization was offered space in two different locations in the East Village, but the city prevented the organization from locating there due to its new policy. Executive director Diana Segboer says the city’s decision was "disappointing."
Inn From the Cold is temporarily using Central United Church as its intake centre for families before they are taken to churches around the city for the night. But Inn From the Cold’s weekend family program is operating out of another temporary location, and employees are having to work out of their homes and vehicles because there’s not enough space at Central United Church.
The Alex Community Health Centre (ACHC) may also lose its headquarters – it was offered space by the Downtown Friendship Centre in its building in the East Village, but the city rejected that plan. The ACHC is currently located in the Alexandra Centre in Inglewood, where it has a community medical clinic as well as its administrative headquarters. The ACHC also runs a seniors health clinic in the East Village, a community health bus for low-income and homeless people, and a laundromat for low-income families in Ramsay. The ACHC had planned to move out of the Alexandra Centre, which is run by the Alexandra Centre Society and owned by the city, but the relocation fell through. In the meantime, the society offered the ACHC’s administrative space to another non-profit group. Although the society says the community medical clinic can remain in its location, it wants the ACHC to relocate its administrative headquarters by the end of March. Shelley Heartwell, executive director of the ACHC says she’s hopeful that its administrative headquarters can stay at the Alexandra Centre because it has nowhere else to go.
Terry Roberts, president of the Calgary Homeless Foundation, says the city should be taking more responsibility for helping agencies.
"I think the city has an obligation to assist agencies. If they’re going to prevent them from locating in a particular area for reasons of their own, then they have an obligation to assist in locating agencies in an area that’s suitable," he says.
Ald. Druh Farrell says the zero growth policy, which she says council announced to the public during discussions around the East Village Area Redevelopment Plan, is necessary in order to revitalize the area, explaining that while land values "are going through the roof" in the rest of the city, they "remain stagnant" in the East Village. The city owns 50 per cent of all the land in the East Village. She adds that currently the East Village has 2,000 residents that are receiving "some sort of subsidy from the public sector" and only 400 residents paying market rents.
"This no growth policy is something we decided on if we want to create optimism and confidence of the future potential of the East Village. The development industry is cautious," says Farrell. "There are other opportunities for developers in the downtown if they want to develop elsewhere. What we’re hearing is… they won’t think we’re serious about redeveloping the East Village and creating a balanced community if we allow the agencies to go forward."
The city has adopted a new Area Redevelopment Plan for the area and plans to implement tax incremental financing (TIF) to revitalize the area. Under TIF, the city would borrow money to fund long-delayed infrastructure upgrades and environmental clean-ups with the expectation that developers would then find the area attractive enough to build in. Then the city would recoup the money it borrowed through higher tax revenues coming from the new development.
Farrell says the city is working with social agencies to try and help them find alternative locations in the downtown core, but she adds that the provincial government should also play its part and provide more funding to groups so they can afford to stay in the downtown core despite the hot real estate market.
Not everyone on city council supports the zero increase policy.
"That’s not something I have supported, nor something I think necessarily has the best intents for the area," says Ald. Joe Ceci. "Any social agency that’s currently there will be engulfed in other kinds of humanity in the future when things develop out." |
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