Council votes 6-3 against federal funding for Streets Alive Mission

Lethbridge City Council looked into the potential of more support for Streets Alive Mission in our city. Council debated on a motion of allocating $215,460 in federal funding to the Christian organization for its Outreach Programs through 2026. It was shot down by a 6-3 vote.

“So I think it’s important that we right now because of the situation that’s coming up very soon and encampments are coming again. I think we need to be proactive,” says councillor Mark Campbell.

Councillor John Middleton-Hope voted against the federal funding.

“We’ve had nearly a year, nearly a year to debrief this, to research it and to prepare our response for this spring. And Council is now being put in a position where we look like the bad guys because we’re not going to fund a program that quite candidly, is not fulsome in its explanation of what it hopes to accomplish or how it proposes to do that.”

Streets Alive was the only group that applied for the federal funding to go towards outreach programming which would include helping our city’s most vulnerable.