Lethbridge expands Fee Assistance Program

To help those facing financial barriers, the city’s fee assistance program has been expanded. The initiative will include recreation and culture activities along with bus passes. An additional 200 thousand dollars has been allocated to the budget annually to help support subsidized bus passes. 

“We’ve known that transportation costs, even on city transit, has been a barrier for individuals to access programs, but also to access employment. And with the refugees from the Ukraine that came in early 2022, city council approved a program to help them with some transit related costs. And we saw some greatest success,” said Andrew Malcolm, City of Lethbridge.

“So this is something we are doing so benefit as many people in our community as possible to ensure not only do they have access to recreation, but that they can actually get to those recreational opportunities and use transit. It will not only help with them getting to recreation, it’ll help them get to work. It’ll help them be able to access stores. And we hope that this will be seen as a positive for Lethbridge,” said Belinda Crowson, Councillor, City of Lethbridge.

Those who are approved for Fee Assistance will have about two thirds of the cost of their bus pass covered.