WINNIPEG — The City of Winnipeg is planning to double the funding available through the Community Centre Grant Program, preliminary budget documents show.
“Community centres are at the heart of where we come together as neighbours and friends,” said Mayor Brian Bowman in a press release. “Building and preparing Winnipeg today for a population growing toward one million people strong requires additional investment to help existing community centres keep pace with repairs and upgrades necessary to keep their doors open and the heat on.”
The program started in 2012 to provide dedicated renovation project funding for city-owned, board-run community centres. Access to this funding is open to all General Council of Winnipeg Community Centres.
There are 63 community centres across Winnipeg. Most of them were built in the 1960s and 1970s to support soccer, hockey and baseball.
The proposed budged would increase available funds from $965,000 to $2 million. The preliminary budget also recommends that the program be evaluated in 2019 to consider increasing the maximum funding threshold per project from $50,000 to $100,000. The city states this would allow community centres flexibility to undertake projects larger in scope.
According to the city’s asset management plan, the infrastructure deficit within Community Services has ballooned over the last 10 years. In 2009, the department deficit totalled $446 million and represented approximately six per cent of the city’s overall deficit. In 2018, this infrastructure deficit increased to $843 million representing 12 per cent of the city’s overall deficit.
Community centres, as an asset class within Community Services, represent the largest share of the infrastructure deficit of all classes within the department at 32 per cent or $274 million.
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