Edmonton’s social housing and affiliated services can mostly be found in the city’s inner core. Despite the saturation, city fathers have continued to permit developers to add more projects in this same locale, rather that trying to place new group homes such as the soon to be built Boyle Residence, in less crowded parts of Edmonton.
The reasoning behind this may be because neighbourhoods such as McCauley and Boyle have fewer residents than other areas. Many homes already fall under the definition of social housing, or are otherwise subsidized and residents are not as likely to protest if another group home built.
There are also a number of issues that need to be addressed before these neighbourhoods in general can be made more appealing to mainstream residents. There have been school closures and the efforts to upgrade the area are slow going. Current improvements that are inching their way towards progress are the LRT route and putting a new face on 118th Avenue.
The residents do care and often have to pick and choose what meeting to attend because of conflicting schedules. City council should take this into account rather than to pass legislation or grant permits based on their perception of community apathy.
Then again, it may just be easier to grant another permit for social housing in the city core rather than try and initiate such a change in some of the more affluent neighbourhoods.