Edmonton city council is calling for minimum standards for homeless shelters.

Councillors agreed at a meeting Monday that the city needs guidelines that shelter providers should follow when offering homeless people a place to sleep, eat and access counselling.

In a motion, council directed staff to craft minimum operating standards to improve the system and help ease impacts on surrounding communities in relation to issues of social disorder.

City staff will explore municipal bylaw tools and other actions to ensure the standards are met, including licenses or the ability to suspend a license.

As temporary pandemic shelters set to close this spring, council started talking about the overdue need for changes.

Coun. Scott McKeen said the current shelter system's institutional operations are not effective.

"Part of the problem is the lineups to get in, in even really cold weather that is demeaning and dehumanizing," McKeen said. "Evicting people early morning before 7 a.m. into a world that isn't even open yet and has created nothing but conflict, conflict all over our city."

Part of the solution, as councillors heard at a committee meeting two weeks ago, are smaller spaces to address more specific needs instead of putting people into large warehouse-style centres.

Councillors started discussing the need for standards, in light of Hope Mission's new downtown Herb Jamieson shelter slated to open this fall.

The $16 million shelter, with funding from the provincial and federal governments and fundraising efforts by Hope Mission, is set up as another large facility to accommodate 400 people with varying physical and mental health and addictions needs.

McKeen said he'd like to see smaller shelters, instead of the more common large facilities.

"We can and should do better as a community," McKeen said. "And I'm really hoping that we can get our major shelter provider to come along with us on these improved ways of doing things."

Mayor Don Iveson agreed for the need to alter the scale of the shelters.

"Too small is inefficient to run, too big is impersonal and also challenging to maintain both personability to reach people and get people services and then also frankly, past a certain point, to maintain order."

Coun. Mike Nickel had first raised the idea of setting standards at the meeting two weeks ago.

"If I was hired tomorrow to open a shelter, what would I do? Where would I get my money; what kind of standards do I have to meet to do this in a compassionate and responsible fashion?"

Nickel said three meals a day and longer opening hours are two obvious examples of standards that should be required for vulnerable people.

"I may have one standard and another person may have another standard, that's no good as we all know, that will not work."

The motion also directs staff to analyze options for clients who've been evicted or banned from shelters for violence or bad behaviour.

McKeen said that a small minority cause a lot of problems and may need more specific treatment and alternative places to go, such as a psychiatric hospital.

Social disorder issues have been more apparent since the COVID-19 pandemic and especially in warmer weather.

"It's been a really tough couple of weeks, in particular in the downtown," McKeen said. "I'm hearing from residents who are being really scared and businesses that are being impacted by street people, street-involved people."

Coun. Aaron Paquette said the standards should address mental health concerns, the needs of specific groups like LGBTQ clients and freedom of religion.

All councillors support initiatives that transition clients to more permanent housing.

Monday, council also approved five permanent supportive housing sites in Terrace Heights, King Edward Park, McArthur Industrial, Inglewood and Westmount.

The projects will create 210 units for people needing support for mental health challenges and addictions dependence.