Most of city's emergency cash to help homeless Calgarians now allocated
Council approved up to $750,000 last month to help unhoused people
More than $600,000 of the money approved by city council in December to help support people experiencing homelessness in Calgary has been allocated.
Up to $750,000 was given to the Calgary Homeless Foundation to distribute so that various agencies and organizations could offer more warming spaces and make it easier to get winter clothing to people who need it.
For a variety of reasons, some people living on the streets either will not or cannot go to shelters to escape cold weather conditions.
A city report shows the money was allocated in three main ways.
- $242,000 for creating warming spaces.
- The Mustard Seed shelter has added four more hours a day to its warming centre operation.
- Wood's Homes Inglewood is offering a warming centre seven days a week for youth, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
- The Calgary Homeless Foundation is working with agencies on creating more warming space options.
- $93,000 for basic winter essentials.
- The Calgary Drop-In Centre has opened a central distribution centre for outreach groups where they can pick up supplies for distribution. Items include food, sleeping bags and winter clothing.
- $266,000 for additional capacity for the Downtown Outreach Addictions Partnership (DOAP) team, which offers supports and transportation for unhoused people.
The city's commitment has also leveraged an additional $100,000 in funds from the United Way of Calgary for these initiatives.
Decisions on how to spend the rest of the money have yet to be made.
The chair of city council's community development committee, Coun. Kourtney Penner, said she is pleased the money is making a difference for people.
"We have moved people into housing, so that's a real good success story, that we're identifying people that we can move into permanent situations to help them continue to get the supports that they need," said Penner.
"Are we capturing everybody? Not yet. Are we starting to identify and make progress? Yes."
One of the agencies that is benefiting from the additional resources is Be The Change YYC, which does outreach work with unhoused people who are sleeping rough.
It helps distribute food and clothing supplies to them as well as ensure people know there are programs and shelters they can connect with.
The president and CEO of the group, Chaz Smith, said there are good intentions in providing more warming spaces during the day, but it's at night when extra options are needed.
"I think it would have been a better mitigation factor if we would have created an overnight drop-in program where people could connect at those locations," said Smith.
He said his organization is grateful to have access to more supplies, which are being distributed.
"I'm happy that we do have some supplies now as it gets colder. And so we will just be able to continue to do the work that we do best, which is meeting vulnerable people where they're at, on the streets."
He said the larger issue — of providing more housing — would be a better solution than what's happening now.
A final report on the additional funding will go to city council by the end of September.
Penner said the lessons learned from providing this additional money will be factored into this November's council debate on the next four-year budget cycle.