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City of Wetaskiwin receives finalized rural homelessness report

Fifty percent of respondents felt their housing situation was unstable
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A finalized rural homelessness report—undertaken by the Alberta Rural Development Network—has been made available to the City of Wetaskiwin stated the city in a press release June 18.

In partnership with the Family and Community Support Services Association of Alberta, the Alberta Rural Development Network led a province-wide effort to estimate homelessness in rural communities in Alberta. Funded in part by the Government of Canada’s Homelessness Partnering Strategy, the Rural Homelessness Estimation Project is an initiative which facilitated homelessness data collection in 20 communities across rural Alberta over a three-month period in fall 2018. The City of Wetaskiwin was one of the participating communities.

“The data collected with the assistance of the Alberta Rural Development Network holds incredible value to our community and provides us with a better understanding of homelessness in Wetaskiwin,” said Kevin Lucas, Director of Community Services with the City of Wetaskiwin. “Using this data as a guide, we will be able to focus our resources to areas that are truly in need.”

The primary data collected for Wetaskiwin indicated that 50 percent of respondents felt their housing situation was unstable, and that 38 percent of those experiencing unstable housing have always lived in Wetaskiwin. Conflict was listed by many respondents as the primary reason they felt their housing was unstable.

The rural homelessness report can be found online at www.wetaskiwin.ca.

-Submitted by City of Wetaskiwin