Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo council, non-profits frustrated at province’s homeless funding changes
Listen to this article
Estimated 4 minutes
The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.
The Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo (RMWB) council and some of the region’s non-profits say provincial changes to how homelessness programs are funded are coming up short.
In late 2024, the Alberta government announced it would fund homelessness initiatives directly across the province. The old system had the RMWB distribute provincial funding directly to local groups.
At a March 10 meeting, municipal councillors were told that homelessness programs in Fort McMurray received about $612,000 less in 2026. In 2025, they received about $500,000 less, according to a report to council.
At the meeting, councillors unanimously approved spending more than $1.64 million toward community programs for homelessness, including nearly $922,000 towards housing programs and almost $368,000 on prevention programs.
“They insisted this was not going to have any effect and we insisted it was, and we’re in the exact spot that we said we’re going to be in,” Mayor Sandy Bowman said at the meeting.
Amber Edgerton, a spokesperson for Assisted Living and Social Services Minister Jason Nixon, said in a statement to CBC News that “there has been no reduction to funding” for homeless groups.
Edgerton said homeless groups in the municipality received $5.5 million from the province in 2026. This funding was earmarked for 90 shelter spaces, supportive housing programs and prevention and diversion services.
“Any funding reduction to individual organizations will be offset by increased funding to other initiatives to combat homelessness in the community,” she said.
As of publication, the province had not replied to a question from CBC News about how much local organizations received in 2025.
Rosie Keating, executive director of the Centre of Hope in downtown Fort McMurray, shows a memorial for some clients who have passed away. Photo taken on April 9, 2026. (Vincent McDermott/CBC)
Some of Fort McMurray’s non-profit groups said in interviews with CBC News and during the council meeting that they have received less money since the province changed how programs fighting poverty are funded across Alberta.
Nixon said at the time this change created “accountability and oversight” over programs and services getting provincial funding, but Bowman says funding is not going where it needs to in the community.
Jo-Anne Packham, executive director of the Wood Buffalo Wellness Society, said the province is still providing roughly $1 million to fund on-site nursing and psychiatric support at the Tawâw supportive housing facility.
Clients of the Tawâw supportive housing facility have a cigarette break in downtown Fort McMurray on April 2, 2026. (Vincent McDermott/CBC)
But the agency also saw a $500,000 cut to funds for other programs, Packham said. The group was among those that were funded by the RMWB in March to make up for funding gaps. Packham said in an interview that Tawâw would have likely closed within a year without that support.
Rosie Keating of the Centre of Hope, a drop-in homeless shelter also running programs for people experiencing poverty, said the agency had previously received provincial money, distributed by the RMWB, to fund its eviction prevention program.
As a result of the provincial government’s change in allocating funds, the program didn’t run between April and December 2025, Keating said. The non-profit turned away people from 78 households looking for help during that same period.
Mayor Sandy Bowman of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo delivers his state of the region speech during a luncheon hosted by the Fort McMurray Chamber of Commerce at SMS Equipment Place in downtown Fort McMurray, Alta. on March 4, 2026. (Vincent McDermott/CBC)
The program is running again after councillors in March approved giving it more than $191,000.
“We’ve actually seen people coming into homelessness because they didn’t have that gap service,” said Keating.
“Each person on the street has a unique story and where they came from and why and how they got there. It needs to be more of a person-centred approach.”
Meanwhile, homelessness is rising in Fort McMurray. There are at least 221 people experiencing homelessness being tracked by the municipality, said Janelle Fleury, the RMWB’s community partnerships manager. In 2024, the RMWB identified 152 people as being homeless.
Fleury says the provincial changes have made it difficult for the RMWB to co-ordinate programs that would have helped with Fort McMurray’s growing homeless population.
“When we lost those programs, it did have an impact on how many individuals we were seeing coming into the system as newly identified in homelessness,” said Fleury.
