Hotels, churches, housing agencies helping ease Calgary shelter crunch

Easing Calgary shelter crunch Hotels, churches and housing organizations are helping house members of Calgary’s homeless community. Kevin Green reports.

Calgary — A number of different organizations are stepping in to help house members of Calgary’s homeless who cannot physically isolate themselves while in shelters.

Late last week, Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi reached out to the Calgary Hotel Association, asking if it’s members had space to offer for shelter clients.

"The thinking behind that was that given that the hotels are largely empty now, and we're actually seeing closures of some hotels, that this would actually be a good outcome to give people a bit of social distancing with their own door with their own shower," Nenshi said Monday. "There has not been any compelling (of hotelliers). It has been very voluntary, and the response has been terrific."

The Calgary Hotels Association represents approximately 85 per cent of the city's hotels and motels.

Executive director Sol Zia says he expected his members to buy into the idea, but was overwhelmed by the response.

"More than half of the member hotels of the Hotel Association responded within minutes or hours. So it was it was quite a quite a strong response. Many of them open their doors right away, and are working with CEMA (Calgary Emergency Management Agency), and other levels of government." Zia said. "We actually were able to get some hotels to coordinate services for shelters by this weekend."

He says hoteliers in Calgary already have experience working with CEMA, building on their experience from the 2013 flood.

"One of them in particular, in the southeast, was fully letted to flood victims and those displaced by the flood. They were the first to respond actually, when the call went out on Thursday," said Zia. "It just shows how supportive of the community, the hotel owners are."

Zia says with the hotels offering shelter space, they will also be getting housekeeping assistance and training for the specialized sanitary needs shelter clients require, especially during the COVID-19 outbreak.

"The agencies have offered special training, because this is a different sort of guest for the housekeeping staff," he adds. "But absolutely housekeeping is being provided. And the agencies are assisting with special training for those housekeepers."

Affordable housing provider Homespace is also offering up rooms to help Calgary’s vulnerable population. The non-profit is just putting the finishing touches on a $1 million renovation of a Sunalta apartment building.

"We thought it was a great opportunity to offer it up to whatever the sector needed. So, right now, we're just working with the Calgary Homeless Foundation on the best use for the building," said Homespace CEO Bernadette Majdell. "What we're thinking is that as folks get into hotels and are self-isolated, and showing no symptoms after the self-isolation period, that they would come to this building, and be supported."

Tuesday morning, construction crews were putting the finishing touches on the 33-room building by adding security cameras.

By the end of the week, Homespace hopes to have the units fully furnished.

Mandela expects the building to augment the support offered by the Calgary hotels.

"We are taking people out of the shelter, putting them in a hotel to be able to self-isolate. And if they're showing no symptoms, they still need a place to go," she said. "(We’re) creating some flow through in the system to open up new spaces in the hotels. This will be a safe place where they can go and be supported and not have to be back on the streets or in shelter."

Churches are also offering up space to help Calgary shelters.

One of Calgary’s largest churches – First Alliance Church – is offering space to 120 men every evening.

Following a provincial mandate that required shelters to create a distance of at least one metre between sleeping mats, The Mustard Seed determined it had to reduce the mats in its Foothills shelter from 370 to 220.

The Seed is also setting up an isolation space capable of housing 10 people safely in its downtown space on 11 Avenue S.W.