Irony holding Winnipeg back

Opinion

In the July 2 Free Press (City awards sole outreach contract to Main Street Project), Marion Willis rightly expresses outrage that Street Links was “frozen out” of a city contract to provide mobile outreach services. The contract went in a competitive bid process to the Main Street Project.

The irony is that the City of Winnipeg has non-profits competing with each other (and at $275,000, a paltry amount of money compared to what it spends on responding to people who are homeless).

To make a serious run at addressing homelessness, rather than having non-profits compete with each other, the city should set up process to see non-profits competing with costs the city is incurring.

I’m not talking about privatizing city services which would result in private companies delivering services now offered in the public system (firefighters and paramedics, for example).

I’m talking about reducing pressure on city services by inviting all non-profits to be paid when they get a job done. In this case it would be successfully housing someone who would otherwise be homeless.

The city could go further and pay them for every month that person stays housed and does not return to interacting with municipally funded emergency services.

This way we can get more non-profits attacking the problem rather than cutting the number by two-thirds, which is what the city is doing.

Yes, this is very different from how governments engage non-profits now, but given the state of the city when it comes to homelessness, I would argue that the only thing that will work is different.

Having non-profits competing with each other is like taking a squirt gun to a forest fire.

I live in St. Boniface. I can testify that Street Links does an amazing job getting people into housing.

They treat our unhoused sisters and brothers with kindness and respect to get them transitioned into housing, then proudly clean up the site for all Winnipeggers to enjoy.

Main Street Project is also doing amazing work across the city. We need as many non-profits as possible working flat out.

Actually addressing homelessness offers huge financial benefits to the city.

But having non-profits competing with each other is like taking a squirt gun to a forest fire.

With such a major homelessness problem, and so much money being spent ramping up paramedic, firefighting and policing services, wouldn’t it make more sense to deploy all our options to address homelessness? The city’s approach results in capacity to respond sitting idle.

Meanwhile our downtown struggles, police response times are unacceptable and our tax dollars are not being spent effectively.

Now some will argue that this sounds like “mission drift.” They will say that the city should leave addressing homelessness to the province. To them I offer two thoughts.

The first is that the city is already deep into our coffers responding to predictable and repeating crises. Winnipeg spends a higher percentage of its budget on emergency services than almost any other city in Canada.

I’m not suggesting the city spend more. I’m suggesting the city spends less.

I’m not suggesting the city spend more. I’m suggesting the city spends less.

The second argument is that yes, the province is also guilty of keeping non-profits under-resourced when it comes to addressing homelessness. Just look at justice and health expenditures over the last decade or two. Our courts and emergency wards are overwhelmed responding to folks who are homeless. These departments too have nonprofits competing with each other for paltry resources.

Manitoba Justice could be paying non-profits for their success at cutting court appearances and nights in jail.

Manitoba Health can cut wait times in emergency wards by paying non-profits for their success at preventing visits. This is what effective government looks like.

Imagine the progress we would see with the city working with Manitoba Health and Manitoba Justice to partner with nonprofits in this modern way.

Instead of non-profits lamenting being frozen out, they’d be busy doing what they do best — housing people and keeping them there.

Shaun Loney is the author of An Army of Problem Solvers. He was awarded EY Entrepreneur of the Year for his career in the social enterprise sector. He ran for mayor of Winnipeg in 2022.