David Stroh, along with John McGah, give a presentation as featured facilitators during the first day of the city-sponsored ³Bringing Lethbridge Home² conference Wednesday at the Lethbridge Coast Hotel and Conference Centre. Herald photo by Ian Martens

Dave Mabell
LETHBRIDGE HERALD
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Lethbridge and Alberta's other cities are making progress in the battle against homelessness. But success can lead quickly to complacency, a Lethbridge audience was warned Wednesday.
"This province has made remarkable strides in Lethbridge and across the seven cities," urban planner David Stroh, a "systems thinking" proponent based in Boston, said in an interview.
"Now the risk is complacency," he said. "It will be very interesting to see how Lethbridge and the other cities can sustain it."
Stroh and John McGah, executive director of the "Give Us Your Poor" advocacy group based at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, were featured facilitators during the first day of the city-sponsored "Bringing Lethbridge Home" conference.
More than 100 participants - reportedly including property owners, designers, developers, landlords and real estate professionals - are taking part alongside people from the civic, social service and non-profit sectors. The "housing summit" is co-sponsored by the city's Social Housing in Action organization.
Stroh and McGah, speakers at a housing conference a year ago in Edmonton, touched base again with provincial housing officials this week en route to Lethbridge. Community leaders have succeeded in making homelessness a high-priority issue for Albertans, McGah observed.
"I would like to know how that (campaign) was so successful," he added.
Public awareness can ebb and flow, he pointed out. Effective initiatives to house homeless people can lower the problem's visibility, and the public's interest could swing somewhere else.
"You need to re-invest," Stroh said. "We need to stay the course."
One way to continue engaging the public, he suggested, is to stress the social returns on every dollar spent. Not only are people given an opportunity to regain a safe and affordable place to live, Stroh said, but every $1 invested in affordable housing can prevent an estimated $6 in overnight shelter costs, medical care in an emergency ward, possible police and court expenses, and the costs of other public services.
"It's an enormous return on investment."
Helping resolve the issues faced by homeless people takes teamwork as well, Stroh said. He outlined a "systems thinking" approach which involves many community partners.
That's proven effective in various communities, McGah said, whether affordable housing was initiated by elected bodies, by church or non-profit organizations, or by the private sector.
But putting together a business plan, allowing each project to remain self-sustaining can prove more difficult.
"The challenge in Lethbridge" and in so many cities is "to be creative in developing housing that is affordable but profitable enough," said Stroh. "That seems to be the major hurdle."
The "summit," open to all interested, continues today at the Coast Hotel and Conference Centre.