Calgarians are being asked to open their hearts, and their homes this spring for the expected influx of new Ukrainian evacuees fleeing renewed violence in that nation.

Every week, 450 people from that nation have been arriving in Calgary, and that number is only expected to grow over the next few weeks as flights resume to Canada from bordering nations, and more Ukrainians take advantage of time limited federal evacuation programs.

“Our waiting list is growing extra every day, and every day I got requests from Ukrainians directly to my inbox saying that we need temporary accommodation,” said Nataliia Shem, manager for housing for Ukrainian evacuees with the Centre for Newcomers.

“I’ve already started to get pre-arrivals for April, May and even June. So we do expect a lot of people still come in here in Calgary, and that’s why we keep asking people to open their doors.”

Kelly Ernst, Chief Programs Officer with the Centre for Newcomers said that in order to meet the demand that the centre is facing, they need at least 100 families in the city to temporarily provide housing spaces for those arriving.

He said that on their own waiting list, they have 270 families in need of temporary space.

“When you have 600 people—more than 600 people on a list and nowhere to house those people, that the future may be very bleak for housing,” Ernst said.

Families and individuals wishing to open their homes can contact the Centre for Newcomers at www.centrefornewcomers.ca/supportukraine.

Ernst said that as a result, some individuals have been staying at the airport until they are able to find shelter. Others have resorted to living rough on the streets or in homeless shelters.

“It puts stress on the whole shelter system, and it means more and more people are rough in the streets. So when people don’t come forward and act as a host home, it actually squeezes that pressure to the rest of the city,” he said.

The federal government has provided support for 75 hotel rooms for evacuees, but that number is too small to meet the demand, said Ernst.

“The stereotype is people are coming with accommodation, with resources to pay for those hotels, and very often they do not have those resources and they may be fleeing and not have any accommodation set up prior to fleeing,” he said.

“We’re over capacity. We’re working with two other hotels beyond the federal government hotels, and sending people to them, and we can only do that because we have some very generous private donors that are helping us do that—we’re actually over capacity on that as well.”