Drayton Valley Family and Community Support Services has taken a new direction in its efforts to help vulnerable members of the community.
Lola Strand of FCSS, says the Town has now erected a phone booth outside of Rotary House. This booth will be accessible to anyone who needs to make a call anywhere in Canada and is the first of its kind in Alberta.
The booth will also have a light, chargers, and free Wifi in the future. It is also wheelchair accessible
“The phone booth is unique to Drayton Valley. It’s an idea that we came up with in our office,” she says.
Strand says with the closure of Alberta Supports across the province, and then the part-time reopening, many people are left struggling to contact the service. Anyone who is looking for government supplemented income needs to speak to the organization, and in some cases has to provide monthly updates of their budget.
It’s typically the most vulnerable individuals in a community that require this assistance. The demographic includes seniors who are unable to do the applications online, as well as individuals who cannot afford a phone or minutes for lengthy calls.
Unfortunately, Alberta Supports is no longer taking walk-ins. Speaking to someone there requires an appointment or a telephone call. Strand says call times can be upward of an hour and a half for some.
Those who don’t have a cell phone, or are limited by the number of minutes on their phone, struggle to get into contact with Alberta Supports. She says that often people have come into the FCSS office requesting to use their phones.
The booth was designed and constructed by a local business called Bluebird, which is owned by Trevor Andrews. Strand says they were impressed with his work on the solar bench that is located next to the MacKenzie Centre.
“We like the previous innovative work he did with the Town,” says Strand.
Strand says since they’ve installed the phone booth, they’ve been getting calls from other communities asking for contact information for Bluebird. She says there is a need all over Alberta for a solution to the current issue of connecting with Alberta Supports.
Strand says Andrews is currently working on making a second booth to be placed outside of the Civic Centre.
Andrews says he was excited about the project and was happy to help. He says the design of the booth allows for privacy while also remaining open so people cannot participate in any illicit behaviour inside.
The plexiglass has a perforated community logo around the area where people would normally be speaking. This prevents people from seeing what the person is saying, but leaves the space open.
He also decided that rather than include the bifold doors that many think of with phone booths, he would put in dual swing doors. This allows for easy access for anyone, including those in wheelchairs or for those who may have their hands full.
Andrews says that while he was creating the design, he felt it was important to make these booths low cost for communities. To do this, he designed it to use certain products that could easily be purchased in bulk, rather than requiring any special orders.
“You can buy the online versions [of the phone booths] fairly cheap, but with supply chain issues it’s really hard to get them overseas,” he says.
While the booths are currently hardwired into the Town buildings to provide power, Andrews says they’ve also been designed to be able to switch to solar power later on. “It was designed so you could have it solar powered, you could have it 5G, you could have it wired, just to keep that flexibility there.”
He says the second phone booth will have a few changes, but those will mostly be aesthetic.
