Monday, September 26, 2022

WORST HURRICANE IN CANADIAN HISTORY

Nova Scotia

N.S. family thankful after four-year-old found safe in woods in aftermath of Fiona

Grady MacKinnon wandered off while his family was outside cleaning up after the storm

Anjuli Patil · CBC · Posted: Sep 26, 2022

Boy found safe after spending night in N.S. woods in wake of storm
'The day after a hurricane with fallen trees and tons of water down and these are unforgiving circumstances. Anything could have happened.'

Four-year-old Grady MacKinnon is safe and sound at home with his family.

On Saturday, after post-tropical storm Fiona barrelled through Nova Scotia's Pictou County, he wandered off into the woods. His parents said they were outside their home in rural Springville, N.S., picking up after the storm with Grady.

"You see these stories on the news, and you think, 'Oh these parents weren't watching their kids, they weren't out with their kids.' And we were out with them and it was a minute we didn't have our eyes on him," Gillian MacKinnon, Grady's mother, told CBC News.

"A minute led to 15 hours of just pure panic and torture."

Gillian said Grady went missing around 5 p.m. on Saturday.

"It's 10 acres of really thick wooded old trees and we searched for a good 20 minutes and we couldn't hear him, we couldn't see him," she said.

To preserve your device data, read the latest Hurricane Fiona details here

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Gillian and her husband, Adam, knew something was wrong and went to a neighbour's house and called 911. By 5:45 p.m., she said there was a "full-blown search."

"He's four and he's in the woods the day after a hurricane with fallen trees and tons of water down and these are unforgiving circumstances. Anything could have happened," Gillian said.

"You're in the woods for the whole night just praying that you'll come across something — good or bad — like you just want to know where he is. There's just no words to describe as a parent the guilt you feel. I wouldn't wish that on anybody."

Grady was found on Sunday morning by his grandfather, Gary Murray, and local paramedic Mary Kenny. The family said Kenny went with the grandfather to make sure he was safe too.

Gillian said her father, who is almost 70, is a hero.

"The two of them trucked through the most awful terrain to find him and I find it hard to believe [Grady] made it through that, let alone they made it through that and they just bought him home," Gillian said.

Adam said he was told Grady was "happy" when he was found.

"He was strolling through the woods after spending the night there in the cold and pitch black, just kind of strolling along," Adam said.

"... [Grady is] strong. He must get that from his mother's side, he doesn't get that from me I can tell you that right now."

Gillian said police estimated Grady had wandered about 10 to 15 kilometres in the woods.

The family said they are grateful to the community members who dropped everything to help search for Grady, even after the storm had knocked out power and water for nearly everyone.

Adam described the relief he felt when he heard one of Gillian's friends calling his name to tell him Grady had been found.

"[Gillian and I] both did a good job of holding it together until we found him. Once we knew he was home safe, that's when we fell apart. He was home in the tub by the time I got home," Adam said.

'It's definitely a sad landmark to lose'

Devon Goodsell · CBC News · Posted: Sep 26, 2022

These shots from Marg Chisholm-Ramsay show Teacup Rock and the remnants of the rock on Sunday. (Submitted by Marg Chisholm-Ramsay)

P.E.I.'s iconic Teacup Rock is gone after post-tropical storm Fiona walloped the Island for more than 12 hours over the weekend, leaving widespread destruction and tens of thousands without power.

The landmark at Thunder Cove Beach was one of the Island's most photographed rock formations — and it gained popularity in recent years thanks to social media.

Dale Paynter snapped a photo of what's left of the rock on Sunday.

Teacup Rock at Thunder Cove Beach was one of the Island's most photographed rock formations. (Twin Shores Camping Area)

"I can remember the Teacup before it was called 'the Teacup,'" he told CBC News.

"It was a larger rock with three legs, and before that it was probably attached to the cliff. I was happy to see it spend its final years as a 'rock star.'"

Marg Chisholm-Ramsay also snapped photos of the void where Teacup Rock used to be on Sunday.

"I've seen many great things in my travels: the Great Wall of China ... the Great Pyramid of Giza, and the Lion of Lucerne but to me the Thunder Cove Teacup was more magnificent because she formed herself from nature," she said.

"The Teacup has seen baby announcements, gender reveals, family pictures, marriage proposals and even ashes were spread near the Teacup — all significant life events.

"The Teacup is ours (Islanders), but it meant a lot to others too."

'A sad landmark to lose'

Debbie Murray also headed down to the beach on Sunday to see the damage for herself.

"It is very saddening to know that many people will never get to experience it," she said. "They will not get to experience the 'wow' factor of coming around the rocks through the water to see the Teacup. Our shores have such beauty and the sea is to thank for most of it ... Goodbye forever Teacup Rock, thank you for all the memories."

Katie McCrossin's family has cottages on the north shore of P.E.I. with a view of the rock, where her parents confirmed that the rock formation is no longer.

Dale Paynter shared this photo of Teacup Rock in its heyday on the left, and a shot of what's left of the iconic landmark taken on Sunday. (Submitted by Dale Paynter)

"My parents have confirmed that Teacup Rock was taken by Hurricane Fiona," she said. "It's definitely a sad landmark to lose … It's sad for many. I think there's been lots of memories made around that rock and around that area of P.E.I. and the beach."

McCrossin spent her childhood summers on the beach, and says the loss isn't a surprise for those who live in the area.

"My childhood was playing down there, catching crabs, and swimming on those rocks. And now my three kids were doing the same. It's been around for generations. But so have other rocks, and they've disappeared and new ones have come … The coastline is forever changing," she said.

'It’s definitely a sad landmark to lose,' says Katie McCrossin, who spent childhood summers on the beach. (Jane Robertson/CBC)

"Every year, every fall, we think, 'Oh it's gonna be gone this winter.' I guess it took it a little sooner — you always think it's gonna be the ice that takes it. But Hurricane Fiona was quite the storm."

The rock formation gained popularity in recent years thanks to social media. (Laura Meader/CBC)

The destruction of the rock wasn't a surprise for those who live in the area. (@michael.gallant1/Instagram)

Chrysalis: Saturn’s Ancient, Missing Moon

By JENNIFER CHU,

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

SEPTEMBER 25, 2022

Scientists propose a lost moon of Saturn, which they call Chrysalis, pulled on the planet until it ripped apart, forming rings and contributing to Saturn’s tilt. This natural color view of Saturn was created by combining six images captured by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft on May 6, 2012. It features Saturn’s huge moon Titan, which is larger than the planet Mercury. Below Titan are the shadows cast by Saturn’s rings.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Saturn’s Rings and Tilt Could Be the Product of an Ancient, Missing Moon

According to a new study, a “grazing encounter” may have smashed the moon to bits to form Saturn’s rings.

Swirling around the planet’s equator, the rings of Saturn are an obvious indicator that the planet is spinning at a tilt. The belted gas giant rotates at a 26.7-degree angle relative to the plane in which it orbits the sun. Because Saturn’s tilt precesses, like a spinning top, at nearly the same rate as the orbit of its neighbor Neptune, astronomers have long suspected that this tilt comes from gravitational interactions with Neptune.

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest planet in our solar system. Saturn, a gas giant like Jupiter, is a massive ball made mostly of hydrogen and helium. While it is not the only planet to have rings, none are as magnificent or as complex as Saturn’s. Saturn also has dozens of moons. It is named for the Roman god of agriculture and wealth, who was also the father of Jupiter.

However, a new modeling study by astronomers at MIT and elsewhere has found that, while the two planets may have once been in sync, Saturn has since escaped Neptune’s pull. What was responsible for this planetary realignment? The research team has one meticulously tested hypothesis: a missing moon. Their study was published in the journal Science on September 15.

In the study, the team proposes that Saturn, which today hosts 83 moons, once harbored at least one more, an extra satellite that they named Chrysalis. Together with its siblings, the astronomers suggest, Chrysalis orbited Saturn for several billion years, pulling and tugging on the planet in a way that kept its tilt, or “obliquity,” in resonance with Neptune.

However, the team estimates that around 160 million years ago, Chrysalis became unstable and came too close to its planet in a grazing encounter that pulled the satellite apart. The loss of the moon was sufficient to remove Saturn from Neptune’s grasp and leave it with the present-day tilt.

Furthermore, the astronomers surmise, while most of Chrysalis’ shattered body may have made impact with Saturn, a fraction of its fragments could have remained suspended in orbit, eventually breaking into small icy chunks to form the planet’s signature rings.

Chrysalis, the missing satellite, therefore, could explain two longstanding mysteries: Saturn’s present-day tilt and the age of its rings, which were previously estimated to be about 100 million years old — much younger than the planet itself.

This was Cassini’s view from orbit around Saturn on January 2, 2010. In this image, the rings on the night side of the planet have been brightened significantly to more clearly reveal their features. On the day side, the rings are illuminated both by direct sunlight, and by light reflected off Saturn’s cloud tops. Credit: ASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

“Just like a butterfly’s chrysalis, this satellite was long dormant and suddenly became active, and the rings emerged,” says Jack Wisdom. He is lead author of the new study and a professor of planetary sciences at MIT.

The study’s co-authors include Rola Dbouk at MIT, Burkhard Militzer of the University of California at Berkeley, William Hubbard at the University of Arizona, Francis Nimmo and Brynna Downey of the University of California at Santa Cruz, and Richard French of Wellesley College.

A moment of progress

In the early 2000s, scientists put forward the idea that Saturn’s tilted axis is a result of the planet being trapped in a resonance, or gravitational association, with Neptune. However, observations taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017, put a new twist on the problem. Scientists discovered that Titan, Saturn’s largest satellite, was migrating away from Saturn at a faster clip than expected, at a rate of about 11 centimeters per year. Titan’s fast migration, and its gravitational pull, led scientists to conclude that the moon was likely responsible for tilting and keeping Saturn in resonance with Neptune.

A view from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft shows Saturn’s northern hemisphere in 2016 as that part of the planet nears its northern hemisphere summer solstice. A year on Saturn is 29 Earth years; days only last 10:33:38, according to a new analysis of Cassini data. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Yet this explanation hinges on one major unknown factor: Saturn’s moment of inertia, which is how mass is distributed in the planet’s interior. Saturn’s tilt could behave differently, depending on whether matter is more concentrated at its core or toward the surface.

“To make progress on the problem, we had to determine the moment of inertia of Saturn,” Wisdom says.

The lost element

In their new study, Wisdom and his colleagues looked to pin down Saturn’s moment of inertia using some of the last observations taken by Cassini in its “Grand Finale,” a phase of the mission during which the spacecraft made an extremely close approach to precisely map the gravitational field around the entire planet. The gravitational field can be used to determine the distribution of mass in the planet.

Wisdom and his colleagues modeled the interior of Saturn and identified a distribution of mass that matched the gravitational field that Cassini observed. Surprisingly, they discovered that this newly identified moment of inertia placed Saturn close to, but just outside the resonance with Neptune. The planets may have once been in sync, but are no longer.

“Then we went hunting for ways of getting Saturn out of Neptune’s resonance,” Wisdom says.

Hubble’s 2021 look at Saturn shows rapid and extreme color changes in the bands of the planet’s northern hemisphere. Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (NASA-GSFC), and M. H. Wong (UC Berkeley); Image Processing: A. Pagan (STScI)

First, the team carried out simulations to evolve the orbital dynamics of Saturn and its moons backward in time, to see whether any natural instabilities among the existing satellites could have influenced the planet’s tilt. This search came up empty.

So, the researchers reexamined the mathematical equations that describe a planet’s precession, which is how a planet’s axis of rotation changes over time. One term in this equation has contributions from all the satellites. The team reasoned that if one satellite were removed from this sum, it could affect the planet’s precession.

Saturn Facts

Planet Type: Gas giant
Radius: 36,183.7 miles / 58,232 kilometers
Day: 10.7 hours
Year: 29 Earth years
Moons: 63 confirmed and named / 20 provisional
Axis Tilt: 26.73 degrees

The question was, how massive would that satellite have to be, and what dynamics would it have to undergo to take Saturn out of Neptune’s resonance?

Simulations were run by Wisdom and his colleagues to determine the properties of a satellite, such as its mass and orbital radius, and the orbital dynamics that would be required to knock Saturn out of the resonance.

From their results, they conclude that Saturn’s present tilt is the result of the resonance with Neptune and that the loss of the satellite, Chrysalis, which was about the size of Saturn’s third-largest moon, Iapetus, allowed it to escape the resonance.

Sometime between 200 and 100 million years ago, Chrysalis entered a chaotic orbital zone, experienced a number of close encounters with Iapetus and Titan, and eventually came too close to Saturn, in a grazing encounter that ripped the satellite to bits, leaving a small fraction to circle the planet as a debris-strewn ring.

The loss of Chrysalis, they found, not only explains Saturn’s precession, and its present-day tilt, but it also explains the late formation of its spectacular rings.

“It’s a pretty good story, but like any other result, it will have to be examined by others,” Wisdom says. “But it seems that this lost satellite was just a chrysalis, waiting to have its instability.”

Reference: “Loss of a satellite could explain Saturn’s obliquity and young rings” by Jack Wisdom, Rola Dbouk, Burkhard Militzer, William B. Hubbard, Francis Nimmo, Brynna G. Downey and Richard G. French, 15 September 2022, Science.

DOI: 10.1126/science.abn1234

This research was supported, in part, by NASA and the National Science Foundation.

'We have impact!' NASA slams spacecraft into asteroid in unprecedented test

1st attempt to shift the position of a natural object in space

The Associated Press · Posted: Sep 26, 2022 7:19 PM ET

Close-up of a spacecraft headed for an asteroid. — In this image made from a NASA livestream, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft heads straight into the asteroid Dimorphos on Monday. (ASI/NASA/The Associated Press)

A NASA spacecraft slammed into an asteroid at blistering speed Monday in an unprecedented dress rehearsal for the day a killer rock menaces Earth.

The galactic grand slam happened 11.3 million kilometres away, with the spacecraft — the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) — plowing into the rock at 22,500 km/h. Scientists expected the impact to carve out a crater, hurl streams of rocks and dirt into space and, most importantly, alter the asteroid's orbit.

"We have impact!" Mission Control's Elena Adams announced, jumping up and down and thrusting her arms skyward.

Telescopes around the world and in space aimed at the same point in the sky to capture the spectacle. Though the impact was immediately obvious — DART's radio signal abruptly ceased — it will be days or even weeks to determine how much the asteroid's path was changed.

"Now is when the science starts," said NASA's Lori Glaze, planetary science division director. "Now we're going to see for real how effective we were."

The $325-million US mission was the first attempt to shift the position of an asteroid or any other natural object in space.

"What an amazing thing. We've never had that capability before," Glaze added.

WATCH | DART's impact with asteroid:

Orbiting sun for eons

Earlier in the day, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson reminded people via Twitter that, "No, this is not a movie plot." He added in a prerecorded video: "We've all seen it on movies like Armageddon, but the real-life stakes are high."

Monday's target was a 160-metre asteroid named Dimorphos. It's actually a moonlet of Didymos (Greek for "twin"), a fast-spinning asteroid five times bigger that flung off the material that formed the junior partner.

The pair have been orbiting the sun for eons without threatening Earth, making them ideal save-the-world test candidates.

Launched last November, the vending machine-size DART navigated to its target using new technology developed by Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, the spacecraft builder and mission manager.

A dark shot in space showing two masses approaching each other. — DART approaches Dimorphos, centre, as the larger asteroid Didymos fades from view. (ASI/NASA/The Associated Press)

DART's on-board camera, a key part of this smart navigation system, caught sight of Dimorphos barely an hour before impact.

"Woo hoo," exclaimed Adams at the time. "We're seeing Dimorphos, so wonderful, wonderful."

Days or months before new orbit confirmed

With an image beaming back to Earth every second, Adams and other ground controllers in Laurel, Md., watched with growing excitement as Dimorphos loomed larger and larger in the field of view alongside its bigger companion. Within minutes, Dimorphos was alone in the pictures; it looked like a giant grey lemon, but with boulders and rubble on the surface. The last image froze on the screen as the radio transmission ended.

Flight controllers cheered, hugged one another and exchanged high fives.

A mini satellite followed a few minutes behind to take photos of the impact; the Italian Cubesat was released from DART two weeks ago.

Scientists insisted DART would not shatter Dimorphos. The spacecraft packed a scant 570 kilograms, compared with the asteroid's five billion kilograms. But that should be plenty to shrink its 11-hour, 55-minute orbit around Didymos.

WATCH | NASA panel speaks after successful mission:

The impact should pare 10 minutes off that, but telescopes will need anywhere from a few days to nearly a month to verify the new orbit. The anticipated orbital shift of one per cent might not sound like much, scientists noted. But they stressed it would amount to a significant change over years.

Planetary defence experts prefer nudging a threatening asteroid or comet out of the way, given enough lead time, rather than blowing it up and creating multiple pieces that could rain down on Earth.

NASA is slamming a spacecraft into an asteroid on Monday to test planetary defence

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Multiple impactors might be needed for big space rocks or a combination of impactors and so-called gravity tractors, not-yet-invented devices that would use their own gravity to pull an asteroid into a safer orbit.

"The dinosaurs didn't have a space program to help them know what was coming, but we do," NASA's senior climate adviser Katherine Calvin said, referring to the mass extinction 66 million years ago believed to have been caused by a major asteroid impact, volcanic eruptions or both.

Close up of what appears to be gravelly chunks of rock. — In this image made from a NASA livestream, DART crashes into the asteroid. (ASI/NASA/The Associated Press)

Countless space rocks

The non-profit B612 Foundation, dedicated to protecting Earth from asteroid strikes, has been pushing for impact tests like DART since its founding by astronauts and physicists 20 years ago. Monday's feat aside, the world must do a better job of identifying the countless space rocks lurking out there, warned the foundation's executive director, Ed Lu, a former astronaut.

Significantly fewer than half of the estimated 25,000 near-Earth objects in the deadly 140-metre range have been discovered, according to NASA. And fewer than one per cent of the millions of smaller asteroids, capable of widespread injuries, are known.

The Vera Rubin Observatory, nearing completion in Chile by the National Science Foundation and U.S. Energy Department, promises to revolutionize the field of asteroid discovery, Lu said.

Finding and tracking asteroids, "That's still the name of the game here. That's the thing that has to happen in order to protect the Earth," he said.

Residents, businesses take aim at Edmonton's approach to homeless camps

City says it's taken down 1,370 camps so far this year,

complaints up 25 per cent from 2021

Natasha Riebe · CBC News · Posted: Sep 19, 2022

Edmonton police order campers to leave a property on 106th Avenue and 96th Street Thursday afternoon. (Craig Ryan/CBC)

The City of Edmonton's approach to dealing with homeless encampments this year is pushing social disorder to new neighbourhoods and new levels, business leaders and residents say.

The city's encampment response teams have taken down more than 1,370 homeless camps so far this season, a spokesperson told CBC News last week.

In 2021, the city dismantled 1,780 for the entire year.

The city said public complaints about encampments have gone up 25 per cent. In 2021, the city had 6,693 complaints and it's received 5,693 complaints so far this year.

Michael Shandro, general manager of the Best Western Plus City Centre Inn on 113th Avenue and 109th Street, said every day, his employees have issues with people who aren't guests.

"Daily, I'm getting reports of them being either verbally or physically assaulted," he said of his staff. "People refusing to leave."

Shandro said his staff have discovered people who aren't guests of the hotel drinking in the hallway, and others setting up camps along the side of the inn.

"It used to be like every week or two we'd have an incident, we'd talk about it, we'd deal with it and that was it," he said. "My staff are getting jaded."

Ellie Sasseville, executive director of the Kingsway District Association, said they've noticed more camps in the area, one recently behind the building on 118th Avenue.

She said they paid $700 to have cleaners haul away trash and debris left by campers last week and businesses shouldn't have to do that.

Refocusing patrols

In May, police and city peace officers started refocusing patrols in Chinatown, downtown and on Edmonton transit, after two men were killed in Chinatown.

Since then, smaller camps have appeared beyond the inner core in places like Kingsway, along 107th Avenue and Whyte Avenue.

Mayor Amarjeet Sohi said he's hearing concerns from business leaders and residents.

"Problems are spilling over into neighbouring communities," Sohi told CBC News.

Sohi said he hopes a fully staffed Healthy Streets Operations Centre, set up in Chinatown, will allow hot-spot policing and enforcement.

"That will help neighbouring communities as well, so I hope that will work," he said. "But we know that enforcement is a Band-Aid solution."

Tim Pasma, manager of homeless programs with Hope Mission, also said clamping down on camps in the inner city means pushing people out.

However, he thinks the increased police presence in Chinatown, where there's typically a lot of social disorder, has helped make the neighbourhood safer.

"There's been a lot of crime, there's been a lot of pain suffered by the community, you know, from a lot of the encampments," Pasma said in an interview last week.

"We do feel like it's safer," he said. "There's still a lot of issues that need to be addressed. So it's really, it's a Band-Aid solution. I think everybody knows that, but it's at least one step in the right direction."

Taking down tents

The number of people identifying as homeless doubled from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

More than 2,750 people have no permanent home and almost 1,300 people are sleeping outside or in shelters on any given night, the city and housing agency Homeward Trust report.

The city developed a new encampment strategy last year, with response teams made up of social agency workers, police and city peace officers clean-up crews.

Last Thursday, the city's encampment response teams dismantled a camp of at least 20 tents at 96th Street and 106th Avenue.

Barb Laidlaw, a resident living across the street for 15 years, said she complained about the social disorder more than two weeks earlier.

"This is the worst year that it's been for all these camps," Laidlaw said. "It's very exhausting. We're always filing 311 complaints about drug use and litter and stolen property."

A day later, tents appeared again on the same site, CBC News found.

Organizers to leave Pekiwewin encampment as temporary shelter opens

The city's new approach to dealing with camps stems from preventing a huge encampment like Camp Pekiwewin in the Rossdale neighbourhood and the Peace Camp in Old Strathcona in summer and fall 2020.

Pasma said large encampments are a safety risk to the general public, first responders and people living in the tent city, where there's exploitation, drug use and crime.

"A lot of the effort has been placed on making sure that these encampments don't grow exponentially to a point where we can't control it anymore," Pasma said.

Winter plan

City, social, agencies and the province are still working on a plan to create more winter shelter spaces but they don't know where that will be.

Last winter, the Spectrum building at the Northlands property on 118th Avenue and Commonwealth Stadium were used as temporary emergency shelters, but the city said neither site is likely to be used this year.

In 2020, the Edmonton Convention Centre was the designated 24/7 shelter during the first winter of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I think there is an urgency to it," Pasma said. "I think everybody that works in the sector and from a funding level is aware of the urgency."

It's a challenge to find temporary spaces, staff, and the logistics of setting up and operating an emergency shelter, Pasma noted.

"As soon as we can have something in place, the better."

Sohi said he's hopeful the province will come through with funding for winter shelter spaces and then longer-term housing solutions for more of Edmonton's homeless population.

PRIVATIZATION FIRE SALE

Alberta government unveils how it plans to divest social housing properties

Critics say divestment could not come at a worse time

Michelle Bellefontaine · CBC News · Posted: Sep 23, 2022

Seniors and Housing Minister Josephine Pon has insisted her government isn't trying to privatize its social housing. (Chris Schwarz/Government of Alberta)

The provincial government plans to transfer or sell most of the affordable housing properties owned and managed by the Alberta Social Housing Corporation over the next decade.

On Friday, the seniors and housing ministry unveiled the Affordable Housing Management Framework, the strategy that will be used to determine whether the Alberta government keeps a property, transfers ownership to another operator, or sells it on the open market.

"Alberta will shift away from being a significant owner of housing stock and focus on regulating and funding affordable housing," the document states.

The government describes the framework as a complementary document to Stronger Foundations, its 10-year affordable housing strategy that was released last year.

The Alberta Social Housing Corporation, a Crown corporation, owns and operates 3,000 properties — or about 27,000 units.

The provincial government suggests it cannot afford to update the existing stock of affordable housing, nor meet the current need for certain types of housing. Transferring ownership would allow "more responsive and preventive maintenance over the long-term."

Affordable housing strategy not about privatization, minister says

Per the framework, each year for 10 years, the government would sell about 20 properties — that are vacant, or inappropriate for affordable housing — to generate revenue that would be used to renovate, expand or redevelop other affordable housing properties.

Other properties — assets that could be transformed into mixed-income developments as tenants move out — would be transferred to housing operators such as municipalities, non-profit groups and private companies.

The new operators could use surpluses and "leveraged equity" to renovate or maintain the properties, or build new ones, the framework says. An encumbrance or caveat will be placed on the land title, however, ensuring the property continues as affordable housing.

The Alberta government did not provide CBC News with an estimate of how many of the Crown corporation's assets would fall into the second category, prior to publication. Such a figure was not included in the document.

Under the framework, the government still has to own some social housing, such as properties for people with disabilities, or if no one within a community wants to take over ownership.

The government says no one will lose their homes during a transfer. Changes will be put on hold until tenants either move out, or are moved to another affordable housing unit.

New Edmonton supportive housing complexes ready for tenants but remain vacant

Edmonton struggling to find funds to operate specialized housing units for homeless people

The strategy and framework — which were enabled after the Alberta Housing Amendment Act passed last fall — will expand affordable housing in Alberta and create 13,000 new units by 2032, the province says.

When the Alberta Housing Amendment Act was tabled, Seniors and Housing Minister Josephine Pon insisted the government was not privatizing housing, but instead working in partnership with other organizations.

Housing crisis

Critics say the province's decision to divest its social housing stock could not come at a worse time, as high inflation rates and surging rent have priced many people out of the housing they need.

Building affordable housing through the Alberta Social Housing Corporation may be the best way to meet the urgent need for housing, said Bradley Lafortune, executive director of Public Interest Alberta, a non-partisan advocacy group.

"We're not seeing the market really take care of itself when it comes to housing affordability and adequacy," he said.

"It's a real crisis for a lot of people and it is actually time for us to look very seriously about more public intervention."

Edmonton mayor renews call for housing funding help after province reports $3.9B surplus

Marie Renaud, Opposition NDP critic for community and social services, is concerned about a lack of transparency throughout the process.

The current problems of high rent, homelessness and the cost of living should compel the government to act more quickly, she said.

"There doesn't seem to be urgency from this government to get shovels in the ground, build more housing stock, create more units," she said.

The framework report says transfers and sales of government housing assets will be reported in the annual reports for Alberta Seniors and Housing.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment

Monday, September 26, 2022

'It's definitely a sad landmark to lose'

'A sad landmark to lose'

1st attempt to shift the position of a natural object in space

Orbiting sun for eons

Days or months before new orbit confirmed

Countless space rocks

Residents, businesses take aim at Edmonton's approach to homeless camps

City says it's taken down 1,370 camps so far this year,

complaints up 25 per cent from 2021

Refocusing patrols

Taking down tents

Winter plan

Critics say divestment could not come at a worse time

Housing crisis

About Me

Monday, September 26, 2022

Social Sharing

'It's definitely a sad landmark to lose'

'A sad landmark to lose'

Social Sharing

1st attempt to shift the position of a natural object in space

Orbiting sun for eons

Days or months before new orbit confirmed

Countless space rocks

Residents, businesses take aim at Edmonton's approach to homeless camps

Social Sharing

City says it's taken down 1,370 camps so far this year,

complaints up 25 per cent from 2021

Refocusing patrols

Taking down tents

Winter plan

Social Sharing

Critics say divestment could not come at a worse time

Housing crisis