The province wants to add 250 temporary homes in Jasper

Jason Nixon, Minister of Seniors, Community and Social Services speaks with Michael Higgins, host of Primetime in Alberta, about their investments in transitional housing for Jasper.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Michael Higgins: Can you give us a picture of what this interim housing construction will look like? Albertans may have an image in mind when the term is mentioned, modular homes.

Jason Nixon: When we have faced these situations in the past, often it was not the same challenge that we saw in Jasper because you would have larger communities that were closer to where the disaster was experienced.

If you are dealing with temporary housing needs, there is often a place close enough with vacancies where you can help people stay there, through their insurance programs, while their homes are rebuilt. Jasper is remote, the only place close is Hinton, and that presents some unique challenges.

We looked at using traditional oilfield camps to address this problem early on. We realized that it would be extremely expensive because of the food costs, because you would have to use food suppliers in those camps.

We recognize that they have not been properly used for these types of emergencies in the past, so we decided to go a different route. My department will invest in $112 million in modular homes, which will be located immediately in Jasper.

It will remain the property of my department and we will then work to ensure that everyone can live in those units while their homes are rebuilt. Then we will either keep those units in Jasper on a more permanent basis and sell them on the market for things like workforce housing (there was already a high demand in Jasper), or we will see if we can move them elsewhere to provide some of solving the problems. affordable housing challenges we face elsewhere in the province.

MH: That target of 250 homes, how close do you expect to get to meeting that demand?

JN: We are confident that we can reach 250. We have gone through a process with several manufacturers that allows us to feel comfortable, in terms of what we offer.

We also recognize that ultimately we may need to do more. We are prepared to step that up if necessary. This is after having done an assessment at Jasper, the municipality of Jasper and the Municipal Affairs department. This is the number that came back, very concretely, that would certainly be needed.

We will watch as people queue up to enter these properties and if we see demand increasing, we will take action accordingly.

I will say there are about 300 structures, a little over 300 residential structures or structures that have burned, so 250 is pretty reasonable within that target location, and again we’ll see how this plays out.

MH: Are there any restrictions on who can queue up to use this housing?

JN: This house is intended for people who lived in Jasper and have lost their home. The highest priority is certainly for essential employees who work within Jasper.

When we say essential, people often think of nurses and paramedics and important issues like this. They are certainly essential, but what I mean by that is that people who contribute to the economy and/or to the reconstruction of Jasper are the priority at the moment.

Over time, we will obviously see more and more people able to return to the community, but that is our focus now.

MH: Given the pressure on construction across the province, are there opportunities to achieve the targets you have already set for January? I believe you referred to between 75 and 100 during the press conference?

JN: It’s a great question, and this is one of the reasons why we went in this direction, because what we need to do is find intermediate solutions that didn’t require us to house a lot of transactions in Jasper.

That’s clearly the challenge we’re trying to solve and every time we diverted construction workers from building our temporary homes, we distracted them from helping people rebuild their permanent homes and from people who really don’t want to wait any longer then necessary.

And by going through this production process, it gives us two really crucial opportunities, because we will do the majority of the production off site and then transport it to Jasper. So we don’t have to deal with so many challenges in the field of commercial housing. And secondly, we can continue to work at a rapid pace in some of the colder months, which we would not have been able to do if we had done so much construction work on site.

MH: Mayor Ireland expressed his deep gratitude to you and the Government for making the funding available now, and in his words for putting aside partisan fighting we have seen in the past. Where does the federal government stand in terms of its involvement in moving this transitional housing element forward?

JN: During this process, I have been in close contact with my federal colleagues. We would certainly like to see them participate in all facets of housing. Right now the federal government has indicated that the best way they think they can do that is through long-term insurance programs for their disaster programs and we will take advantage of that and we will now move forward with Alberta providing the money. .

I don’t see this as a partisan issue. I’m no stranger to partisanship, and frankly I’m willing to do that if we have to defend our province, but I think we all just recognize that Jasper is not only a crown jewel of Alberta, but also a crown jewel of Canada, and that we all need to come together to take care of some Albertans who are going through a very, very difficult time right now.

So my focus is not on partisanship at all when it comes to this, I just want to see people get houses, get Jasper rebuilt, and then we can all watch and know that we care about our fellow Albertans.

MH: When the FBI comes to the table, are there any hard and fast numbers you look at? Do you split the costs down the middle?

JN: I certainly think we would at least want the costs to be split down the middle between us and the Feds. I think in the long run, in terms of disaster recovery dollars, it’s the Alberta government’s position that the feds should actually raise more, given the nature of them owning all the land in this context. This is in the National Park on federal land, it’s their portion.

We’re going to have some conversations about what we think is fair. I know that the Minister of Public Safety, Deputy Prime Minister Mike Ellis, is going through that process with his colleague. Again, my focus is not on that, even though I support the work he is doing. I don’t want to be delayed by any of those conversations. They are important, they must happen. My focus is on working with my team in the city of Jasper to get people home as quickly as possible.

MH: MLAs return to the legislature next week (October 28) for the start of the fall session. What will make this a crucial session for your government in terms of priorities?

JN: I think you’re going to see a lot of bills about protecting Albertans, protecting the rights of Albertans, and then we also continue to advance the mandate that we got from Albertans a year ago.

Once again, we’re trying to make life more affordable and focus on continuing to ensure that Alberta is the best place to live, play and retire in the future.

I’m really looking forward to being there again with all my colleagues. For me, it’s my favorite time of year when we turn to the Legislature, so it should be fun. I look forward to seeing all the great results of the work of all 87 MLAs in the House this year.