Homelessness at top of agenda for city budget delegates

Pleading, instructing, negotiating and in some cases angrily berating, members of the public spent much of Thursday exhorting Regina city council to include a plan to end homelessness in the coming year’s budget.

“This is shameful, Regina,” said one delegate.

Others talked about the Catalyst Committee projects and said that it’s more important to make sure everyone has shelter than to have a new pool or baseball stadium.

One woman told council, frustration in her voice: “Do your job and serve all the citizens.”

Some came to council to talk about those they’ve known who’ve struggled with homelessness, including Wanda Natawayous. Her 22-year-old daughter Angela Andrews recently died while homeless.

Natawayous put a black bag on the desk in front of her when she presented to council and revealed the black urn holding her daughter’s ashes.

“I picked up her ashes yesterday and I had intentions of bringing them here to shock (the councillors) to maybe show them that there are people affected more than just these faceless people that they think are out there,” she said later.

Natawayous’ daughter dealt with addictions issues but just two weeks before she died, Andrews contacted Natawayous to say she wanted to get help – but Natawayous said in this community, there was no help to get.

“She was found unconscious in one of the back alleys and ultimately died of a blood infection thought to be the result of a bug bite,” said Natawayous.

When the hospital tried to contact Andrews to tell her about the infection, there was no way to get ahold of her because she was homeless. Natawayous said if her daughter had a home, she might still be alive.

“She might still be here instead of here in an urn,” said Natawayous.

Around 80 delegations were expected to stand up and say their piece about the city’s full budget on Thursday.

Coun. Andrew Stevens was one of those who put forward the application — which ultimately failed — to force city manager Niki Anderson to include a plan to end homelessness in the city’s draft budget.

Stevens said the response from the community has been disappointing.

“I can’t say they’re in the majority, but given the choice between spending money on helping homelessness and seeing people freeze, I heard from too many people who would rather keep that money in their pocket,” he said.

But Stevens also said the number of people at council who want to present on the issue is showing that opinion isn’t the case across the city and people do care.

“I’m actually quite emotionally struck by the fact that people care so much about this,” said Stevens. “There’s new faces in the audience (and) that’s awesome. This is actually warming my heart that we have so many people from different walks of life who care about this and want us to do more.”

Stevens said the city has done a lot on this issue and he recognizes that the city can’t do everything that’s needed. But he also believes it can do more.

When asked about the affordability for taxpayers of such a plan, Stevens said that’s always an issue at budget time. But he also pointed out that affordability wasn’t brought up during the discussion around the police budget on Wednesday.

“It’s interesting that that’s absent, given the fact if we look at the mill rate increase, the police service is dominating how much we are willing to tax,” he said.

As for the motion to end homelessness which was not included in the draft budget, Stevens said he knows when administration is not trying to advance something in good faith, and when it came back with the money for the homelessness plan, administration could have given reports, alternatives and options.

“I think that’s probably the most hurtful part of this, that it just seemed to be a side note when that motion that we passed in June was very clear. If it was financially unsustainable they should have put forward some options for us to consider,” said Stevens.

The councillor said many of his colleagues care about the issue deeply but it’s all about how they prioritize things in the budget.

Deliberations are expected to extend into Friday.