Edmonton Mayor Andrew Knack Expands Youth Housing Spaces and Encourages Youth Engagement

By Chevi Rabbit, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

(ANNews) – Edmonton’s newly elected Mayor Andrew Knack has moved quickly to address pressing issues affecting youth and vulnerable populations, with a focus on homelessness, safety, housing, and community support.

On his first major initiative as mayor, Knack introduced a motion to expand daytime and winter warming spaces for youth. Speaking about the urgency of the issue, he said, “I heard overwhelmingly during the campaign across the city that safety is the number one issue for Edmontonians, including homelessness, mental health and addictions. Edmontonians want leadership on this issue; they don’t want us to keep saying it’s somebody else’s problem. They want action.”

Thanks to partnerships with Homeward Trust and other agencies, funding was leveraged to expand youth spaces from an anticipated 50 to 300. Knack highlighted the impact for iHuman Youth Society: “Yeah, so we have 100, specifically for iHuman, there’s 120 new spaces for the youth there, and it’s allowed them to expand their hours. Originally, they were open until about five o’clock, now it’s going till nine o’clock. They weren’t able to do weekends, now they’re able to do weekends. Before it was Monday to Friday, 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., now it’s seven days a week, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., with additional spaces available to support those youth and make sure they have more coverage and care. This is incredible. It’s going to allow those youth to have more safe spaces to go for a longer period of time.”

The expansion isn’t limited to iHuman. Knack also noted broader citywide improvements: “On top of that, we’ve expanded spaces across the city. There’s more spaces – for example, there was one in the West End that was open Tuesday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 12. Now it’s Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., and they’re open on the weekends, 10 a.m. to 4. So many more people are going to have access to a space, especially throughout the winter, where we know it can be particularly hard. These types of spaces are critical to helping more and more people, so it’s so good to see we have spaces downtown, we have spaces in the west, and we have spaces southside.”

Knack has also been active on housing solutions. He shared his optimism about collaboration with other levels of government: “A lot of money [is going] into housing. I had a meeting with the provincial governments about two weeks ago, and Minister Jason Nixon… What was really encouraging is in that meeting, we really realized that there was common agreement about the need for more post-recovery housing… We need more market housing, but we also need more non-market housing for people. And so I actually see a situation where this might be the first time in 12 years where I actually see all three orders of government seemingly aligned, and it’s really good to see.”

On collaboration, Knack emphasized partnerships as the key to impact: “That’s how you build a stronger Edmonton together – by working together with all these groups, the other orders of government, these agencies like iHuman who are serving. We do that together and we have the biggest impact.”

Knack also encourages youth to use their voices and engage in shaping the city: “I sat as the councillor up in my first eight years on the City of Edmonton Youth Council, and something I always try to remind youth of any age, whether they’re just in grade school or starting post-secondary, is how much their voice actually matters. I think there’s this assumption that if you’re younger, people don’t care about youth as much… But what I have seen over my time as a city councillor, and now as mayor, is that when youth are speaking up and using their voice, they’re actually the group that you have to listen to the most, because they are the ones that are going to be around to experience the impact of the decisions we make for as long as possible… Please make sure you speak up and use your voice.”

Through these actions and statements, Mayor Knack has set a tone of hands-on leadership, prioritizing measurable improvements for youth, vulnerable populations, housing solutions, and meaningful civic engagement across Edmonton.