Saskatoon mayoral candidates pitch different visions on how to fix homelessness crisis
Scott Larson | CBC News | Posted: November 1, 2024 11:00 AM | Last Updated: November 1
Block, Atchison and Wyant debate DEED, homelessness and budgets on CBC's Saskatoon Morning
Three Saskatoon mayoral candidates offered different visions on how to tackle homelessness, property taxes and a new downtown arena during a debate on CBC's Saskatoon Morning radio show Friday morning.
Taking part in the debate at Glass and Lumber in Saskatoon were Cynthia Block, who has been a city councillor since 2016, Don Atchison, who was mayor from 2003 to 2016, and Gordon Wyant, who was on city council from 2003 to 2010 before becoming a Saskatchewan Party MLA and cabinet minister.
Mayoral candidate Cary Tarasoff declined the invitation to the debate and Mike Harder did not respond to CBC.
Homelessness
When it comes to addressing homelessness, Block said facilities must be close to where services are to help people transition, but residents and businesses must be brought to the table with a task force.
"The struggle is nobody wants it in their backyard," she said, adding the plan has to be done in partnership with the community and other levels of government.
"All of the research shows putting it on the outskirts never works.... The model needs to be close to services, close to transit."
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Wyant advocated a different tactic, saying that abandoned houses and housing not being fully utilized by the Saskatchewan Housing Corp. could be renovated and given to housing authorities that provide affordable units.
"My plan is to bring all that together with industry, with education and with the government, to provide the kind of housing," Wyant said. "There's hundreds and hundreds of vacant and abandoned housing in the city. We can take advantage of those."
Atchison said we need to categorize the homeless and put them in tiny homes on acres of land the city owns that is not in residential or commercial areas.
"It's out in the open. The city has thousands of acres that would be able to accommodate [those homes]."
Atchison cited the examples of the Regional Psychiatric Centre and the Saskatoon Corrections Centre being built on vacant land, then having homes or businesses built around them.
Crime
"When we are spending 24 cents out of every taxpayer's dollar for policing we clearly need to find a different approach," Block said.
She said her plan would see police, fire and transit have the resources they need today, but also build community safety from the ground up through neighbourhood and business safety plans, and a 24/7 drop-in youth centre.
"Some of these would be new resources, technology … to make sure we are not only being proactive but having measurable results."
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Wyant said he would increase police resources — technology and the number of officers — and decentralize police services.
He said he wants to,"create more precinct offices in and around Saskatoon where the police are working in their communities."
Atchison wants more officers on the street, but said the idea of adding more precincts would just mean more officers behind desks and not out on the streets.
"Those resources could be much better spent with officers out there working on behalf of the citizens of Saskatoon."
He said the number of officers per 100,00 people has declined over the last few years.
"We need to get back to having officers actually talk to the public, deal with them on a one-to-one basis."
Property taxes
Atchison said he would have a zero per cent increase in his first year by freezing all hiring by the city except for police and finding $20 million in savings.
"We need to get back to the basics again — policing, water, waste water, transportation," Atchison said during the debate.
"The fringe items, unfortunately there's going to be some difficult decisions made."
Block said she has been a strong advocate for basics like infrastructure, but that a zero per cent tax hike would mean giving up something on the service side.
"I would an innovative approach on how to reduce the pressure on property taxes," Block said. "We need innovative funding and procurement, by working with other cities to reduce big capital costs and asking for national leadership on national issues such as baseline funding for transit."
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Wyant said he'd get next year's property tax down to two per cent from its current six per cent through efficiencies and sticking to the basics.
"We need to look at what the core services of government are and avoid taking up space that other governments should be responsible for," Wyant said.
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A new downtown arena
Wyant said he supports more convention space at TCU Place, "but I don't support any other development in downtown Saskatoon, especially with respect to the rink, that are going to affect the mill rate."
Wyant said the project has already affected the mill rate in terms of taxes to downtown hotels.
"The funding model is flawed."
Block said she too will say no to a new arena if it has an impact to property taxes, but that the overall project should go forward at some point.
"If we want a city that's more efficient, more affordable, and more sustainability we will want the city centre plan to move forward," Block said.
"But if there is a funding flaw in the funding model I don't think today is the day we have to worry about that. This is years in the future that we need to be talking about that, not today."
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Atchison said he would vote no to a new downtown arena.
"Until you have safe and secure downtown, it doesn't matter what you do," Atchison said.
"People don't want to come downtown."
He said the city has to deal with "needs, not wants," and a new arena isn't needed.
Housing accelerator fund
Block said she supports what the city has done to access tens of millions of dollars from the federal Housing Accelerator Fund, "because it addresses the urgent matter of lack of housing in a city that's growing at faster place than anywhere else in Canada."
But she said she would put in incentives to keep increased density close to the LINK transit lines.
"It's not lost on me that this means an intrusion into neighbourhoods that none of us want to do at this point in the city's history," she said.
"My plan will be to incentivize mixed use directly along the corridors and by doing that de-incentivize moving that into the interior of neighbourhoods."
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Atchison said he is adamantly opposed to the accelerator fund.
"It is a disaster for the City of Saskatoon," he said.
Atchison said council has dropped the ball over the past few years.
"They didn't have the vision, they didn't have the foresight to see how the city was going to grow."
Wyant said he supports greater density, but not "to throw away 120 years of planning for $41 million."
He said other cities have seen lawsuits stemming from the accelerator fund and the same could happen in Saskatoon, costing the city money.
The civic election is Nov. 13. Advance polls are open from Nov. 1 to 4 in various locations from noon to 8 p.m. CST.
There are also advance polls for University of Saskatchewan students on Nov. 5 and 6 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. CST and at Saskatchewan Polytechnic on Nov. 7 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. CST.