Bitterly cold north wind blows through Calgary, putting city’s most vulnerable at risk

Mother Nature dropped one last blast of frigid temperatures of 2025 as Calgarians bundled up on Saturday.

A nasty north wind blew through Calgary Saturday, putting the city’s most vulnerable at risk.

With daytime temperatures around -20 C and a cruel north-northwest wind gusting up to 50 km/h at times, the windchill throughout the day was stuck on -35.

Philip Calvert, chief development officer at the Mustard Seed, said the biting wind presented extra challenges for the unhoused population.

“We find a lot of people who are coming into Mustard Seed either at our drop-in locations or at our shelter bearing the evidence of sheltering from the wind,“ Calvert said. ”A lot of frostbite. A lot of people who are in a lot more urgent need than normal.

“And so that definitely affects the way people show up – so it’s not only about the numbers but it’s (also about) the way people show up."

The Mustard Seed has one shelter in southeast Calgary with just under 300 beds and a woman’s shelter with about 50 beds.

“We are often at capacity,” Calvert said, saying the organization welcomed donations of mitts, gloves, socks and toques, as well as cash.

“Just going online to theseed.ca and making a gift – we all know how expensive everything is these days, and because of that, we’ve seen donations a little bit lower than we want them to be this time of year,“ he said. ”So if you can just go online and make a gift, that makes a huge difference."

Calvert said the shelter works with the Calgary Homeless Foundation to coordinate “a warm handoff”, working in tandem with the Drop-In Centre, Alpha House and the Aboriginal Friendship Centre to make sure everyone gets a bed when the windchill drops into the -30s.

‘Close to the limit’: DI

At the Drop-In Centre, Kevin Webb, director of emergency shelter and housing said the cold sends demand for beds up.

“It is incredibly busy,” Webb said. “We see about 150 to 160 on top of our normal numbers which normally pushes us close to the limit of our occupancy.”

“We’re getting there now,” he said. “In conversations with other shelter providers across the city, they’re already at capacity.”

Webb said in-house nurses and paramedics have been able to limit the medical emergencies and the DI’s large East Village building makes it possible to find a bed for anyone who needs one.

“The DI is kind of the pressure lever,” Webb said. “Having more space, we can usually pick up the people, but it’s getting very tight (for capacity) right now.”

The Drop-In Centre has capacity for just over 1,000 people.

The forecast is for the cold snap to continue overnight, with a low of -25 C before warmer weather moves in Sunday, when the temperature is expected to rise to -1 C.

With files from CTV’s Tyler Barrow