Thursday, February 8, 2024
VOLUME 6 I ISSUE 33
MERIDIANSOURCE.CA
Housing needs under microscope JEANNETTE BENOIT-LEIPERT STAFF WRITER
.................................. Th e Cit y of Ll oydminster held a meeting to discuss what it will take to fulfill housing needs in the community, with a survey now underway. The City of Lloydminster Housing Needs Assessment and Strategy Community Conference was held at the Lloyd Ex on Jan. 30, with nearly 100 registered attendees participating in the day-long conference. “One of the things we’ve been hearing from folks is that it was a really great opportunity to connect with other people who are involved in housing in Lloydminster. From a business, but also from a social services provider perspective, to start building some of those relationships,” said Patrick Lancaster, the City’s manager of social programs and services. The day began with a presentation by Bassa Social Innovations, a consultant team that’s been conducting workshops with various
groups in Lloyd for the past seven months to gather information and present an initial report. Lancaster said the validation of their findings was an important part of the process. “The main presentation was a presentation of the initial findings of the report. A big part of that was the validation process. It was like ‘here’s what we learned—does it feel like Lloydminster? Does this make sense about our community?’ “Our consultants are very conscious of the thought they want to make sure the report represents our community, so they need to hear that from us, as residents.” Some of the residents who attended the event were seniors, who recorded their findings to share at Tuesday’s Lloydminster Concerned Citizens for Seniors Care Society meeting. “Any expectation that something super definitive was going to come out of it was a little misplaced, but it was a good discussion, I thought,” said Dar-
Jeannette Benoit-Leipert Meridian Source
City of Lloydminster manager of social programs and services, Patrick Lancaster, addresses the the attendees during the wrap-up portion of the housing needs conference on Jan. 30.
rell Dunn, who is currently running for City Council. “Let’s look at homelessness for a second, there was probably six to eight groups and organizations and contacts that were there, that if they can coalesce there’s some good stuff happening that can be leveraged up into some multi-party, potential solutions.” Another important part of the day were the breakout group discussions.
“We had some speakers and kind of a fireside-style chat presentation and then following the sessions, breakouts into little working groups to start capturing some ideas,” said Lancaster. “There’s already lots of great strategies out there, but we wanted to gather some information on what ones would be appropriate locally.” Sharon Pryor was also in attendance at the housing conference
and brought in her voice into the discussion on behalf of Lloydminster seniors. “I was very glad that I stayed to the end … the last group I got to, of the three groups I attended, I mentioned the senior housing to two of them and the last one they actually said ‘Oh. We hadn’t thought about that, can you talk to us about that?,’” Pryor explained. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2