AI chatbots, 12-unit housing: Hundreds gather at Edmonton Chamber emergency housing meeting – Edmonton Journal
Thursday’s event brought over 200 attendees from all backgrounds to facilitate discussions around solutions the business community can offer and later implement to help Edmonton’s homeless population
Lia Sykes experienced homelessness for six years before she was able to find permanent housing.
Growing up in an abusive household, Sykes felt a lack of worth from her family which translated into relationships. When she saw her children were at risk at being emotionally and psychologically abused, she packed up her car and moved from Nova Scotia to Alberta — where she was born — for a new beginning.
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“I would live with the income assistance funding while I was looking for a job and feel worthy of that job. Eventually, I found a company that took me on and that company gave me the best start. It was a part of my journey of healing,” said Sykes.
Attending the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce’s emergency housing meeting last week, Sykes said she’s hoping to see a more cohesive system to help those who are currently experiencing homelessness.
She suggested having a process where someone experiencing homelessness, within a week, they’re provided with a safe space to go, able to get started on the process to finding temporary housing and later, permanent housing.
“The problem is sometimes there’s a lot of talk and no action, and that used to be me in my past. That first step seems so hard, and it was terrifying. That might be for the same for other people that haven’t been through it. But it’s taking that first step, and when you get the momentum, it’s just going to happen,” said Sykes.
“We’re not going to completely eradicate homelessness because there’s going to be somebody that’s homeless for a short period of time, but we need to be able to house them.”
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Thursday’s event brought over 200 attendees from all backgrounds to facilitate discussions around solutions the business community can offer and later implement to help Edmonton’s homeless population and those who are struggling to find affordable housing.
Murray Soroka, founder of Jasper Place Wellness Centre and a speaker at the event, said governments cannot solve the issue of homelessness alone, and that organizations need to do their part.
One of the solutions he highlighted is a 12-unit housing project the centre is undertaking. The centre owns four buildings, each with 12 apartment units and a shared common area which he said provides a sense of community, and creates a space where people feel welcomed and offers affordable housing.
“They’re saying isolation and loneliness is a health detriment and they’re equating loneliness to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. Loneliness is really difficult and in our business it has dramatic and negative effects. So we wanted to build buildings that were different,” said Soroka.
Dr. Louis Francescutti, a professor in the school of public health at the University of Alberta and an emergency medicine physician at the Royal Alexandra Hospital, said loneliness has a severe impact on the health of individuals.
He said his hospital sees 40 patients a day who are entering the emergency room experiencing homelessness.
“There’s nothing more morally distressing than meeting someone and having to turn them back onto the street — it’s called treat ‘em and street,” said Francescutti.
He pointed to solutions like Bridge Healing, a program he created that offers transition beds for those experiencing homelessness who have been discharged from Edmonton hospital emergency departments.
At the Northern Alberta Institute for Technology (NAIT), a group of students are working on an Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbot as part of their capstone project that will interact with clients in the emergency departments to assess what level of care they require.
Kevin Valani, who is working on the project along with three other students at NAIT, said the chatbot would use programmed data to gain more clarity on the needs of the patient and field them to the necessary department.
“Some homeless people are not open to communicating with individuals. Through this AI chatbot they can freely chat … and they won’t be judged by a chatbot,” said Valani.
“This will help us to know what (someone has) been through in their trauma history, the suffering they’ve been through, and this AI chatbot will help to find the specific place to put them in.”
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