Two sites have been determined for the City of Calgary’s planned emergency housing, one in the northeast and another in the southwest.

The announcement comes a day after the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) David Duckworth said that they were still in the process of determining the sites, three months after they’d been given the green light to seek the two locations.

The measure was included as a part of Calgary’s Housing Strategy when it was approved in September.

The City has selected one site in Whitehorn, next to the multi-services building, and another near the Fish Creek-Lacombe station in the city’s southwest. Both sites are within immediate walking distance of Calgary Transit bus and LRT stations.

Now, the City will accept expressions of interest (EOI) from non-profit housing providers to develop and deliver “a transitional housing facility for families with children. For LEASE at nominal rent,” reads the real estate listings on the City of Calgary’s webpage.

The expression of interest closes on Jan. 15, with a completion date for the projects within 18 months.

Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek said they have had very positive buy-in from the non-profit and homelessness sector.

“We’re going to be working very closely with the Calgary Homeless Foundation as an important partner as we move forward,” she said.

The mayor said that city administration worked as quickly as they could to assemble the land, land use approval, development permits and capital and operational funds.

“This program actually truncates the timeline that gets city land locally, typically at 18 months to do a nonmarket land sale,” the mayor said.

“This is going to take place within two and a half months.”

Part of the city’s housing strategy

Not only is this step following specific direction from Calgary city council to locate land for emergency housing, it’s also dipped into the recommendations that directed the City to find sites annually among the city’s extensive land portfolio for affordable, non-market housing.

“With the approval of the Housing Strategy this year, we committed to take immediate and longer-term actions to ensure Calgarians have access to safe housing they can afford,” said Mayor Gondek.

“The release of these two city land sites to rapidly create homes for families in precarious situations will allow for housing with dignity in a completely overloaded system.”

Tim Ward, manager of housing solutions said that they were pleased to finally open the EOI.

“The City has strong housing partners that have a far reach and impact in our community,” he said.

“This Expression of Interest is an important first step in working with and enabling our partners to establish housing for families experiencing homelessness.”

Ward said they would work with the city’s housing providers to find out exactly what’s needed to meet the demand for Calgary families.

“They’re on the ground there. They’re seeing what is needed, and so they’ll be best placed to decide what the unit mix is what the bedroom types are, whether that’s three, four or five bedroom units, and so that will dictate how many units are created as well,” he said.

“We also want to be flexible in terms of we don’t want to set a particular time limit for people to stay. We need people to transition from this type of housing into a more permanent housing with grace and dignity.”

Initially, there was discussion that this could be a quick deployment using modular homes. Ward said they didn’t want to dictate to the housing providers the built form they could propose as a part of their expression of interest. Further, he expected there would be community engagement around the site selection and the developments during the approvals process.

Ward also added that it was important for the provincial and federal governments to step up to help fund the development of the sites.

Concerns around the timeline

On Wednesday, Ward 1 Coun. Sonya Sharp expressed frustration with the time it’s taken to get these sites online and the housing started. Sharp had originally suggested a friendly amendment to double Mayor Gondek’s recommendation to set aside one site for emergency housing, to make it two.

She said that she expected the sites to have been selected and work already underway to get people housed.

“Those are critical, those two locations for our city, especially as we get into the winter months,” Sharp said.

“I was under the impression that we already would have had these two sites and they would have been allocated to those providers by the end of this year.”

Ward 11 Coun. Kourtney Penner said that she’s worked with many of the non-profits in the past and she understood the resource strain they were under. That could have influenced the timeline for the projects to commence.

“We would love them to move very, very quickly. Sometimes we just can’t,” Penner said.

“I would say that it’s frustrating, but I understand. Without knowing who we’re talking to or the sites we’re identifying, there could be a number of challenges.”

Chaz Smith with Be the Change YYC street outreach program said the transition housing is much needed. He said it could be 240 families whose lives could be completely changed with access to housing. The timeline wasn’t an issue either, he said.

“I think at the speed of the way government seems to work sometimes that’s actually very quick. I’m very excited,” Smith said.

Heather Morley with Inn from the Cold said she felt the project has moved “with speed.” She said they would likely be a part of the conversation in developing these sites as one of the leading agencies involved with unhoused families.

“I think for families that are in the most dire circumstances, it can’t come soon enough,” she said.

“But I think projects like this take time; finding suitable land, releasing the EOI, finding the funding, it’s actually come together quite quickly.”

• with files from Aryn Toombs