Open Letter To Mayor Blaine Hyggen (& City Council)

Dear Mayor Blaine Hyggen, 

In recent weeks, I’ve heard you comment several times, that there are folks in the city who are doing lots of complaining about the City of Lethbridge’s encampment strategy, but that they aren’t willing to step up and help out. 

I won’t be so narcissistic to think you were speaking solely to me, but I get it. I’ve been an active backseat critic. 

And I’d like to explain the reason for my specific form of advocacy. 

Back in 2006, my volunteer relationship with the City of Lethbridge began. My goal was to offer my skills as needed in the fight to end homelessness. By my math, that’s 7 years before you were elected to council.

Early on, I sat on the occasional committee. However, I quickly became embedded and during the next decade I produced dozens of research reports and statistical profiles for the city’s administration. 

The resulting policies were evaluated by a team I had the good grace of sitting with, which generated multiple annual report cards measuring our successes and gauging our failures. 

I presented these findings to City Council on several occasions and took the time to grow my corporate memory. 

In time I sat with various Social Housing in Action (SHIA) committees, and I received a ministerial appointment as one of the Alberta Homelessness Research Consortium’s six founding members, with Bob Campbell. 

Our team was tasked with designing and implementing the research and data collection agenda for the Province of Alberta’s 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness. Work that benefitted Lethbridge and Southern Alberta.

In all, between 2006 and 2017, I dedicated hundreds (maybe 1,000s) of volunteer hours to the City of Lethbridge. Along the way I also produced work for the cities of Medicine Hat, Fort MacLeod, and Red Deer. 

I acted as a city ambassador by presenting research findings to the Deputy Minister of Alberta Health Services, as a member of the City’s negotiating team looking to land an operational funding agreement for St. Joan Haven (Brassard House). 

There’s plenty more examples. But then I took a few years off to regroup. 

When I sought a return in 2019, SHIA was being disbanded. This was an unfortunate decision, for SHIA sought out those experienced community members to inform its work. 

That model was replaced by … well, we’re still waiting to see. What’s clear is the ‘application to volunteer’ has replaced the ‘invitation to participate’.  

So that’s what I did. I applied to be a Lethbridge Housing Authority board member. We might have sat beside one another! Imagine that? Slam dunk for at least an interview, right? Nope. I tried the next year. Notta.

Citing my time as an instructor in the Sir Sandford Fleming College justice program (policing), my research on Indigenous policing and justice issues, and my time as a researcher helping to forge elements of the Canadian Forces’ recruitment strategies, I applied to be a member of the Lethbridge Police Commission. 

Guess what? Denied!

It seems that I was institutionally shut out of volunteering. But that’s the way the cookie crumbles, and I respect the process (despite its opaque nature). Not once upon being turned down, did I raise a ruckus or appeal to the powers that be. I accepted my fate. 

Taking the hint, I stepped back to adopt the status of ‘observer’. Until Encampment Summer: 2022, that is.

Having visited the Kitchener and Lethbridge encampments, studied the issue with colleagues for several years after serving as an expert witness in B.C./Yukon Association of Drug War Survivors (DWS) v. Abbotsford, I reached out to the CBO to see if there was a new role for me.

How could I contribute? Need some data collection? Research designed? I know a guy who knows a guy!

Thanks, but no thanks, I was told … the CBO’s on shaky ground. I connected with Mike Fox after that, but we all know how that turned out. 

The writing was on the wall, so I sought out a community of like-minded folks on, of all places, Twitter. Not the most effective outlet for my skills, but hey!

The people were great, the energy infectious. Eventually I started blogging as the ever-expanding community of advocates asked for more detailed discussions. 

I’ll just stop there as the rest is history. 

Mayor Hyggen, the next time you … or Counc. Middleton-Hope … or anyone else wants to moan about the ‘whiners’, their perceived lack of community spirit, their refusal to help out with this complex problem, please re-read this letter. And know that I am not the only one who feels shut out.

As to my personal experience, my past work for the City stands up to scrutiny and my desire to contribute to my community is on the record. 

So, if we’re being honest, Mayor Hyggen, I have not rejected you or the City.

You have rejected me! 

Yours truly, Dr. Yale Belanger Former City of Lethbridge Volunteer 

PS: I will continue to advocate on behalf of the houseless community. If the analyses I publish in my blog come off as overly critical, for that I am sorry. 

Remember, though, that only a few years ago more detailed versions of these abridged works would have been handed over to you freely and used to inform policy. 

My how times have changed. 

-30-

Dr. Yale Belanger is a Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Lethbridge. He is a member of the Royal Society of Canada, College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists. Dr. Belanger is a vocal proponent of improved First Nations (reserve) and urban Indigenous housing and the end of homelessness. In this capacity, he is a member of the Canadian Homelessness Research Network (CHRN) and the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness (COH), an editorial board member for the Australia Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI), and a former member of the Alberta Homelessness Research Consortium (AHRC).