Edmonton aims to set homeless shelter limits, locations through zoning bylaw

Shelter operators in Edmonton may soon be under new rules on where they can open facilities and how many people can stay overnight, if city council approves a set of regulations proposed by administration. 

The regulations would limit the number of people sleeping overnight in a year-round shelter to 125, according to a report by the city's urban planning and economy branch. 

The shelter could exceed the limit for up to 90 days during an emergency like flooding, wildfire smoke, hail storms, tornadoes, extreme temperatures, the report adds. 

The city also suggests facilities shouldn't be allowed to open in areas zoned for business employment near heavy industrial sites.  

City council asked administration last September to propose the changes through the zoning bylaw. 

"Council has been concerned about the impacts of shelters with large congregate sleeping areas on both shelter users and surrounding neighbourhoods," the report says. 

Ward Anirniq Coun. Erin Rutherford said she's in favour of the limit, as there are challenges with some of the traditional shelter spaces. 

"If we're permitting new shelters, we don't want them to be just major communal sleeping spaces," Rutherford said in an interview this week. "There needs to be some dignity and safety that people will actually be wanting to go to that shelter."

People choose to stay in encampments instead, she said, because they're not comfortable in the communal sleeping space in a shelter. 

"That is, they would rather sleep in the river valley or somewhere else."

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The city based the 125-person limit for a sleeping area of 1,373 square metres, with a minimum area of 11 square metres for a bed and a two-metre separation between each bed as recommended by the city's emergency shelter best practices guide.

The report was scheduled to be discussed at a public hearing Monday but due to a lengthy agenda, it was postponed to the next meeting on Aug. 18.

Zoning toolbox

Shelters are primarily funded by the Alberta government and regulated through Alberta Health Services, leaving the city little authority to influence how shelters are run, the report says. But the city can enforce some standards through its zoning bylaw. 

"It is the one tiny tool in our zoning toolbox that we have to actually enforce any kind of shelter standards, as a municipality," Rutherford said. 

Councillors started discussing amendments to the bylaw last summer when Hope Mission planned to open a new 120-bed facility at 124th Avenue and 149th Street in Rutherford's ward. 

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The newly revised zoning bylaw that took effect in January 2024 now allows for shelters to open in all business employment areas, unlike under the previous zoning.

Some councillors consider the industrial areas inappropriate locations for shelters, with few amenities and places for clients to go.

Most existing shelters in Edmonton would conform to the 125-overnight limit, the report says, except for two of the largest shelters.

One of the biggest providers in the city says efforts to renovate and improve existing facilities would be challenging. 

"We don't have any problem with restricting maximum occupancy in emergency shelters to 125 people for new shelters," Tim Pasma, senior director of programs for Hope Mission, said in an interview Monday. 

"Our concern is more related to: What does that do to our existing operations?"

Between 375 to 400 people a night stay at the Herb Jamieson Centre, he said. 

The cost to build new smaller shelters would range from $6 to $10 million a site, he said, with higher operational costs. 

"So if we were to move spaces, stay out of downtown because our existing sites are now in non-compliance, that just becomes very prohibitive."

Edmonton currently has 14 year-round shelters and one seasonal shelter, according to the Alberta government. 

As of May this year, 4,896 people in Edmonton were considered homeless, according to Homeward Trust, the agency that supports housing options and services for the city's homeless population.

The total is broken down in three categories: 805 people staying in shelters, 2,930 provisionally accommodated, which includes temporary stays at medical facilities and couch-surfing, and 1,161 people unsheltered.