Karen Kobussen’s Post

A creative and caring person with a lowly can of spray paint has single handedly created the safest and most needed thing this city has possibly ever seen. A crosswalk and bike/pedestrian lane across a busy and deadly Saskatoon intersection. This IS all it takes to ensure safety for all (cars included!) and PREVENT tragedies. Tactical urbanism is NOT a bad thing. Maybe if we called it Public Art, the city won’t remove it? We can only hope. It will (sadly) most likely be removed by the City in short order. RIP, Natasha. I did not know you personally, but as a resident of Saskatoon, I feel responsibility for what happened because we didn’t speak out enough. 💔

A series of unfortunate events. Part 2. DEED. The acronym that conjures up mixed emotions. Love it or hate it, we should probably unpack it. And do the math. Have you ever been to downtown Phoenix? Or Los Angeles? And I mean actual downtown, not Scottsdale or Disneyland. Well, I have and let me tell you, those are not pretty places. Yet, they have stadiums and convention centres and all the big, ginormous places, but I’ll tell ya, you take your life in your hands being there when there isn’t a big game on, a concert or a huge convention. It’s downright scary. Why is that? Glad you asked. Because no one LIVES there. No housing, no residents, no cute coffee shops ( outside of the one or seventeen Starbucks inside said facilities) and it is not a place anyone wants to be on a daily basis. Saskatoon needs to create “downtown vibrancy” BEFORE developing a mega project. Housing, retail, shops, restaurants… in other words, third places. Places where people want to be not just for an event, but somewhere that they frequent already. As I always do, here are 3 ideas: -Inventivize commercial to residential conversions (last I heard, the downtown commercial vacancy rate was like 26%, while the rental housing vacancy rate was less than 2%) -TIF (tax incremental financing) is NEVER a good strategy for consumption spending (despite what they tell you, the DEED is consumption spending, not infrastructure spending, more on that later) -Saskatoon is currently in a deficit budget position. We should NOT be relying on future “assumptions” that this will right itself anytime soon without any solid proof. Wish in one hand, s%*t in the other. (I’ll take “The Other Hand” for $2.1 billion, please, Alex) This isn’t even about citizens tax dollars (like 25 years down the road). It’s so much more than that. This is about creating a space that Saskatoon residents (not just tourists) will enjoy, appreciate, access easily, and want to be, cause it’s vibrant, thriving and safe. Heck, I’ll move downtown in a heartbeat if it’s the place to be. 🩷

Saskatoon, take note. In only 4 months, Edmonton was able to approve an affordable housing project with the tools they had at their disposal: -Available land (provided at no cost) -Financing (this is how TIF should be used) -Permit approvals (fast!) Fast tracking housing projects and finding solutions does not have to take years of deliberation and study. It takes council leadership and clear public messaging that promotes the immense public value of building affordable housing (read: housing that regular people can afford). The economic, social and community well-being outcomes that benefit all Saskatoon residents when we use resources in this way are immeasurable. Congratulations, Edmonton!

There are three things to consider for Saskatoon’s long term prosperity and vibrancy: -Transparent Local Accounting -Safe and Productive Streets -Solvent Land Use Ask yourself these three questions of every decision made in council. If we’re not checking all the boxes, it’s not the right decision. Or at least, not the right time. Everything Saskatoon needs to feel safe, secure and prosperous is within the answers. 🩷

A series of unfortunate events. #1 - Homelessness & Housing It is absolutely cringeworthy to hear mayoral candidates sling mud and play “government hot potato”, each blaming the others for their responsibility (or, lack thereof) as to how we got here and why the homelessness crisis is at a critical point. The city says “it’s not our fault! The province is responsible!” The province says “it’s not our fault! The Feds are responsible!” And the Feds say “yes we kind of are responsible for this, but the City and the province are complicit. Here’s a ton of money so we can just buy our way out of it and shut you all up!” Shame on all of you. But you know what? At the end of the day, the City of Saskatoon has received commitment from the province for 2 shelters, and has received $41.2M from the Feds for “affordable housing projects” and could do so much with that money to fast-track solutions to building housing. GET CREATIVE. GET INNOVATIVE. FIND SOLUTIONS. Here are 3 ideas: 1) You cannot manage what you do not measure. The latest Point-In-Time counts are unreliable, as they are from 2022 and are anecdotal, at best. The City could fund the most recent technology available to get an accurate count. Then, we know what we are really dealing with, exactly. GIS technology is cutting edge. 2) Get a real By-Name List. What most people do not know is that Saskatoon has been funded (see below for an amount of money that will make you puke) to compile a registry of people accessing services within the social network of housing, addictions, mental health and that registry is supposed to track, at any given point in time, anyone accessing services and, also should tell us how many people are directed to housing while experiencing chronic or episodic homelessness. However, for service providers, participation in this system, called Coordinated Access, is NOT mandatory. That means, we literally have no idea how many people are accessing services, how many people obtain housing or how many people enter homelessness, ever. 3) Build. Measure. Learn. Iterate. The possible solutions are not (or perhaps previously, were not) grandiose or at an unfathomable scale. Small scale ideas, from which we measure, learn and iterate are actually the path forward to solutions that could have (and can be) implemented to address this crisis. Find that location for the 2 - 30 bed shelters. Implement the By-Name Registry (make it mandatory!) so you can track your progress and have data. Make the next decisions based on that data. The City has so much money, time and resources to make this happen, yet they continue to blame the province and the Feds for what is literally happening in our backyard, instead of taking a leadership initiative. PS- that funding I talked about earlier? Saskatoon has received about $6M a year to address homelessness for the past 10 years. Next up: DEED. Will the financing model work?

Once upon a time, I was young, alone and pregnant. I had no where to go, no one who cared. Until I walked into the YWCA. I was lucky. I was immediately given shelter, education and opportunity. When I learned about how many are not able to access what I was, I knew we had to do something. Please consider purchasing a ticket. Maybe you’ll win. Maybe you won’t. But please know that your support will mean something. To a woman and her children who will grow up to be amazing someday. I think that’s totally worth it. ❤️

What began as a humble journey in my quest to learn more about parking mandates just over a year ago has led me to connect with some of the smartest, most incredible people I have ever known. We are on a mission to educate Saskatoon on how to become a prosperous city through understanding municipal finances, creating safe streets which lead to vibrant communities, and informing good urban policy that creates solvent land use. A big part of the work ahead is about putting the "we" back into the process of creating strong towns, cities, and communities we all deserve. 🩷

Revitalize or Die. My beautiful city is dying right before my eyes. This is not some alarmist message or conspiracy theory I made up to shake you up. I’m not like that. This is fact. And here’s why. The generally accepted approach to community improvement (building outward and prioritizing big box stores) has not resulted in any benefit to the older neighborhoods Why are there no grocery stores in the downtown or in core neighborhoods? (I’m looking at you Broadway and City Park). Because, Saskatoon has sold out to new neighborhoods, smart centres and excessive expansion for money. And I firmly believe this is why we at at an all time low for civic pride and community engagement. We need to look at where we are today and realize that what we have been trying just isn’t working and we must have the courage to try something new, or perhaps, something old. My parents and grandparents grew up in Pleasant Hill. They talk of the butcher shop, the electrician, the corner store owner, all living above their storefronts as if they were family. They knew their neighbors, they respected the land, they welcomed all. Folks then had as much as they needed, and they were happy because (I believe) their sense of community pride was abundant. Where I went to church, we celebrated with our Indigenous relatives and our settlers from every nation, always. Everyone had a home, because we developed inward - not out. We used what we had on hand because it was enough. Mega projects and tourism will not save us. Developing recklessly outward will continue to create a ‘doughnut’ city, which is where the inside dies, leaving nothing to sustain the core vibrancy. If you don’t believe me, check out Detroit, Baltimore or Flint, MI. Cities die all the time. We might be next. I think Saskatoon is worth saving, don’t you?

If I’ve learned one thing in my over 15+ years experience in the housing space, it’s that the City of Saskatoon has an abundance of one thing, and it’s the key to solving ALL of our financial, social, economic and budget deficit woes. And that thing is LAND. While complex, it’s not complicated. There are solutions: 1 - Unlocking municipal owned land through partnerships with those who know how to build and do it well. 2 - Investing in infrastructure to support thriving communities by prioritizing housing, green space, social infrastructure, active transportation and transit over road and highway construction.  3 - Reduce “red-tape” and eliminate redundant processes that delay approvals and make housing more expensive to construct. 4 - Remove prohibitive fees and levies that slow construction starts or drive unaffordability for homeowners.  Powerful policy changes and aligned levels of governments could significantly facilitate development in response to the housing crisis. Let’s talk more about what we can do, and less about what we can’t. 🩷