Edmonton Headlines: Monday, March 6, 2017

Councillors are going to talk about what the City of Edmonton can do with some extra money it’s found itself with after the 2016 fiscal year. Most of it is probably going into savings, but some of it is going to be spent. They’ll be talking about this at the city council meeting this week.

One thing it’s probably not going to be spent on is supportive housing. This is the most-needed kind of housing to help solve Edmonton’s homeless and poverty problems.

One such building that does offer residents on-site care and support as they transition from the street (and jails, and hospitals, and…) is Ambrose Place. It’s being held up as an excellent example of why this kind of housing needs to be built, not just to get people into homes but to save millions of dollars on healthcare costs (and policing, court and other costs).

The mayor toured Ambrose Place with many others last week and is using it to push the provincial and federal governments for more than $200M Edmonton expects it would need to build supportive housing over the next decade. We’ll have to wait and see what happens in the provincial and federal budgets this spring.

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Speaking of the City spending money on things that aren’t supportive housing… the federal government was on hand to announce more money for an expansion of Fort Edmonton Park. Work is set to begin this fall on upgrades, which include a new Indigenous history installation. The City is spending more than $70M of its own money on the renovations.

($70M + $64M = 6 years of supportive housing)

Spending sarcasm aside, the Indigenous history pavilion is a needed addition if we want Fort Edmonton highlighting actual history of Treaty 6 lands.

Investment scam kills Edmontonian

At the Edmonton Journal, Gordon Kent has written a longread about an Edmonton business owner who died by suicide. The man lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in a new kind of online investment scam called “binary option trading”.

The story included a website where you can check to see if people you’re investing with, and their companies, are legitimate. Use this website if you have any concerns about people you’re dealing with over your investments and savings. And, as the story points out, there’s never a deal too good to be true because it’s not true.

Post-secondary stories

Alberta’s post-secondary schools are getting together later this month to talk about how to better track sexual assaults on campus, and better serve people who find themselves in need of the various reporting structures and services.

This story looks at some research from a University of Alberta professor who doesn’t see rural newspapers taking a strong enough stand for farm safety. (Something more controversial than it probably should be.) There are some good lessons here on that specific topic, but it can easily apply to other industries and other language used in media stories where a message or action does need to be conveyed to the audience.

AI update: Computers are definitely better than me at poker.

Good news

This “Snack N’ Study” program for Syrian children is helping them learn English as they transition to life in Edmonton. The program is open to any students in need of learning English, so spread the word.

There’s a new food bank for pet owners to get some help for their cats and dogs. Boyle Street also has a pet food bank. This is a great way to help people from having to give up their animals.

This month there are a number of special events and concerts as Edmonton’s Yardbird Suite celebrates 60 years of jazz.

At City Hall

City Council meets today, at 1:30 p.m. See the agenda online. You can watch or listen live to a stream of the meeting.