More services need to support Edmonton’s inner city population

The success of Ambrose Place and renewed interest from funders have rallied agencies working in Edmonton’s inner city to evaluate services and programs and identify gaps.

“We’re trying to build community in the inner city,” said Russell Auger, who led a meeting at Ambrose Place that included representatives from Bissell Centre, Boyle Street Community Services, E4C Alberta, Alberta Native Friendship Centre, All Saints Anglican church, and Ambrose Place. Auger is a resource person with Spirit of Our Youth Homes Inc., which houses youth, who have been taken from their families. “We need to work at the grassroots level.”

The most vulnerable people live in the inner city yet barriers exist in accessing help. Waiting lists are long for what programs are offered in the immediate area.

And though there are a large number of services available throughout the city, inner city residents don’t have transportation to head elsewhere. But it’s also about comfort level, says Auger.

“The young and the old people, they won’t migrate that far out. They need support internally. They need to find a place they will feel comfortable to come to and there’s not enough of that going around in the internal part of the city,” he said. 

Also, not all programs available in the inner city can be accessed by all Aboriginal people. And inner city agencies have become more geared toward responding to emergencies and crises intervention instead of proactive programming.

“There hasn’t been a lot of successful programming … and that’s because the funding available is just scratching the surface of Aboriginal culture. Programs are started but not sustained,” said David Prodan, chair of the Urban Core Support Network, which consists of inner city agencies working as a catalyst for bringing about change in how services are delivered in the inner city.  Prodan is also program manager for E4C, which manages the McCauley Apartments, which offers affordable housing in the inner city. His role, says Prodan, emphasizes the delivery of workshops, programs and events annually, which seek to bring together tenants and locals in order to build community. 

And when there is funding, not enough of it is channeled in the right direction, says Marlene Orr, assistant director of Ambrose Place.  The inner city apartment unit provides affordable accommodations for those in recovery.

“It irks me when I hear about funding organizations that are now going to provide funding for Indigenous people without consulting Indigenous people,” she said. Direction needs to come from the grassroots.

There also needs to be more collaboration between inner city agencies. Resources need to be pooled between agencies, government and corporations.

But there also needs to be a will to make changes in the inner city.

“There has to be like-minded people in a level high enough that government can hear,” said Carola Cunningham, director of Niginan Housing Ventures, the non-profit organization that built Ambrose Place. “But the people still have a responsibility to provide good programming to the people who are here struggling.”

“Not much comes from a meeting if all you do is talk about it. I want people to talk like they really mean it,” said Donovan Shirt, who is a youth ambassador with iHuman Society.

Auger says the road ahead is tough. Gaps between agencies do exist and his hope is that these meetings can bring the community together to find solutions.

“There’s a large group of people that shoot through the cracks,” he said. “You’re not going to be able to salvage all those people, a lot of them are just going to die out there. But the ones who are willing to try and make change, we have to fight for them.”