Local advocates say a proposed transitional home for youth in St. Albert must include a plan to support LGBTQ youth.
On Aug. 17, city council approved the creation of a capital project charter to outline the home's structure and implementation. The idea, which came from the Mayor's Task Force To End Homelessness, is to house and provide guidance for youth left without access to any supports. The goal is to have an outside agency operate the home.
Kris Wells, a St. Albert resident and an associate professor at MacEwan University who is the Canada Research Chair in Sexual and Gender Minority Youth Issues, said it is important to have a non-faith based group running the transition home to ensure all youth feel comfortable and safe.
“That's a huge concern for many LGBTQ youth. They experience it when they go into these kinds of programs – they get re-victimized because of homophobia and transphobia,” Wells said.
Wells said it is important to have the home be fully LGBTQ-inclusive right from the moment it is conceptualized to ensure it is gender-inclusive and that that the staff working there have adequate training on LGBTQ issues.
Ensuring the LGBTQ community is properly considered when building the transitional home is very important, Wells added, because large portions of youth experiencing housing insecurity are LGBTQ. Wells said up to 40 per cent of street-involved or homeless youth identify as LGBTQ, and those numbers are even higher when you look at trans and non-binary youth.
“You can't offer a program like this or build housing supports without thinking about LGBTQ young people and their needs – in fact, by addressing their needs first, you'll address everyone else's needs. It's really important. This is an excellent idea and much-needed,” Wells said.
In 2019, the city's task force found at least 167 people were homeless in St. Albert, including youth, seniors, new immigrants and victims of domestic violence. The task force recommended the city focus its first efforts on addressing youth homelessness, as youth have the fewest resources and the greatest need here.
Terry Soetart, executive director of Outloud St. Albert, a group that supports local LGBTQ youth, said many youth are kicked out of their homes when they come out to their parents.
Soetart said he has heard often that parents will only allow their kids to continue living in their home as long as they are not gay or trans.
“Which, of course, it's not like it's an option. So this kid has come to terms with who they are, and then (the parents) send them back into the closet ... and it's 10 times worse,” Soetart said.
Soetart said it can be hard to come up with numbers for the amount of LGBTQ youth experiencing housing insecurity because most youth don’t want to be identified as either homeless or LGBTQ and become a statistic.
Dean Kurpjuweit, executive director of The Mustard Seed in Edmonton and who chairs the city's task force, said St. Albert needs to take care of people experiencing homelessness and not send them off to Edmonton.
“What we found is that when youth get caught up in the system in Edmonton, they don't know what to do, they don't know how to handle it ... You don't learn a lot of street smarts on the corner of Perron, St. Anne."
In August, city administration estimated a 10-bed home with staff would cost approximately $650,000 a year to operate, though the amount depends on how much grant funding and available land the city is able to secure for the project, and the building itself.Council also passed a recommendation to develop a business case to hire a social housing coordinator in a 5-2 vote (Joly and Hughes opposed). Those opposed noted that recommendation had failed at the committee level, which estimated costs for the position at $98,000 a year.
Council will consider a proposal for the transitional home during the fall budget discussions.
