Mayor Don Iveson praises federal budget for investment in housing, transit
Mayor Don Iveson is lauding the federal government’s investment in affordable housing, which he said will “move the needle” on homelessness in Edmonton.
“It will mean the opportunity to do more projects like Londonderry (and) partner with the province to build more permanent supportive housing,” he said Wednesday in an interview from Ottawa, where he’s heading the Big City Mayors’ caucus of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. “It’s a strong budget for cities.”
The federal budget released Wednesday slated $11.2 billion for affordable housing in Canada over the next decade, with money coming from the government’s social infrastructure fund.
“(It’s) unprecedented in this generation to have the federal government so deeply re-engaged in affordable housing and social housing,” Iveson said.
He also touted the government’s $20.1-billion investment in public transit infrastructure over the next 11 years — Edmonton’s share of that should be sufficient to fund the west leg of the LRT and the Blatchford LRT extension, he said.
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