One mayoral candidate wants to move Winnipeg’s homelessness crisis out of the downtown core and into gated micro-home communities across the city and says people living in them wouldn’t have to be sober. Joshua Pagdato is one of 12 candidates running to be Winnipeg’s next mayor. In an interview with CTV News Winnipeg’s Senior News Anchor Maralee Caruso, Pagdato said his platform is built around housing the homeless, healing the sick and lowering the cost of living. Asked what qualifies him for the job, Pagdato, who said he’s “from the streets,” pointed to his background. He said he has lived in Winnipeg his entire life, calls himself a “typical Winnipeg boy,” and has gone from blue-collar to white-collar work. He said he has “lived many lives,” bringing a range of experience. Pagdato said he has drafted three dozen bylaws he would bring forward immediately. He said his top priority is tackling homelessness through a “housing first, no preconditions” approach. “[It] means you don’t have to be sober to enter the program,” Pagdato said. “The idea is just to stabilize; house first. I want to put the help needed inside the infrastructure itself.” He said he would convert part of the city’s homeless shelters into intake centres to assess people’s needs and direct them to appropriate supports. He also proposed a two-tier system, one for people in crisis and one for people approaching it. To house people, Pagdato said he would form a coalition with the prefabricated housing industry to build gated, staffed communities of reusable, expandable micro homes. He said he would like polycarbonate used in the homes so they can be easily washed and wants artists involved so residents can heal there. He said the micro homes would also serve veterans, seniors and people aging out of the child welfare system. Pagdato said he wants to “separate the concentration of the crisis from downtown” so the core can be revived. Asked what he would say to residents who don’t want such a community in their neighbourhood, Pagdato said he sees no alternative. “There’s no other way,” he said. Pagdato did not say how much the plan would cost or specify how it would be funded. On property taxes, Pagdato said he would try to lower them and committed to not raising them, adding that he would try to bring new money into Winnipeg by expanding local manufacturing. His housing plan, he said, would also ease the load on first responders. To keep young people out of drug-selling and gangs, he proposed an after-school workforce development program that would give students access to trades. Shifting some police budget funding toward those initiatives “would make sense,” he said, and he would also seek to involve the federal and provincial governments. Another proposal is a transit express route that would take seniors and Manitoba Housing residents to a mall or theatre in a single ride. Pagdato said he believes thousands of Winnipeggers would appreciate the service. The mayoral hopeful also has several convictions in the province between 2005 and 2010, court records indicate, including possession and possession for the purpose of trafficking under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. Pagdato said the possession charges involved cannabis and that the convictions are behind him. “I smoked weed, and I didn’t like jail, so I just stayed on that little path of defiance because I was just a young, young kid at the time,” he said. “I’ve had to learn my lessons the hard way.” Pagdato is one of 12 mayoral candidates CTV News will profile in sit-down interviews ahead of the Oct. 28 election. The full interview can be viewed online. With files from CTV News’ Maralee Caruso
