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A big increase in funding for social housing should let Edmonton start to catch up with a long-standing need to find places for vulnerable people to live, Mayor Don Iveson says.

Over the next five years, the province will boost spending to $892 million to plan, build and maintain housing for seniors, homeless people and other groups, more than doubling what was provided in last October’s budget.

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Iveson said Thursday the initial estimate for the city is a “huge” three- or four-fold funding boost in this area.

“It begins to meet the scale of the challenge that we have. It will take a lot of work to ramp up, but that’s a good problem to have, because we’re way overdue in Alberta for investment in social and affordable housing.”

The city approved a plan last fall to redevelop aging townhouse and apartment sites scattered throughout its 1970s neighbourhoods with a higher density mix of both market and low-income housing.