Northern News Services
Published Friday, November 16, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - The city needs to develop a plan to deal with crime, drugs, poverty and other social issues, say some city councillors as they enter into 2008 budget deliberations.

A "social plan," the brainchild of Coun. Shelagh Montgomery, would lay out an approach to social problems, affordable housing and other services, such as arts, culture, housing and recreation.

Suggestions that the city be more active in dealing with problems such as crime, addiction and poverty have been met with resistance from some councillors, who have pointed out that social services are a territorial and federal responsibility.

Yellowknifers have rated social problems as the top issue local leaders need to address in citizens surveys for three years running.

"It's time to start doing something," said Montgomery. "It's completely inadequate to me to talk about social issues and then just say it's not our mandate. You can't just sluff it off, you do have to take some responsibility and take a leadership role so that the problems begin to get dealt with."

A social plan would resemble the Community Energy Plan and Smart Growth plan and set out timelines for possible initiatives, such as affordable housing, a daytime drop-in centre and more foot patrols in the downtown core.

The city also has tools to promote affordable and accessible housing in the short-term. It can require developers to include accessible and/or affordable units in every development and provide tax rebates for high-density buildings downtown, among other methods.

The municipality couldn't likely afford to allot a lot of resources toward social services but it could take the lead lobbying the territorial government and getting various groups together to find solutions, said Montgomery.

"It's the city that ultimately ends up paying for it by people saying it's a dangerous place to live, it ends up being bad advertising for the city," said Montgomery. "If we had the financial resources to do something about it, maybe we could. But the GNWT obviously needs to recognize that it is their mandate."

Coun. Paul Falvo said the city has taken a "piecemeal" approach to social problems and that needs to change.

"We just don't have a comprehensive way of looking at social problems," said Falvo. "We're sort of dealing with them on a case-by-case basis and I'm not sure that's getting us where we need to go."

And while it's under the mandate of other levels of government, it's a concern to residents of the city, he said.

"That makes it a municipal issue," he added.

The development of a social plan was also a priority of Coun. Lydia Bardak.