For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.

To most members of the Christian faith, that passage from Matthew is intimately familiar—but for the faith community at Journey Church in Calgary’s northwest community of Rocky Ridge, that isn’t just the topic of a Sunday sermon.

For the past three years, the church has been operating a warming centre out of their church located next to the terminus of Calgary Transit’s Red Line that serves dozens of individuals every day.

“We are a warming centre that’s open to all people. So, I actually think that our humanity is a lot of what brings us together—anybody from any kind of faith background or life background or is welcome here,” said Reverend Jessica DiSabatino, Lead Pastor for Journey Church.

“We’re not into coercing people or signing them up for the church, or like sign here to get a chili. We want people to feel welcome, no matter where they’re from. That is based on our belief, that we believe that all humans bear the image of God.”

Services provided to the unhoused individuals include simple things like a bowl of chili, or a cup of coffee, to more complex services provided by the Calgary Distress Centre, Alberta Health Services and The Source to provide medical care, housing support, and other wrap-around services.

The warming centre began as a result of the need, and the reality, that Calgary’s unhoused are not just bound to the narrow confines of a few blocks in the downtown core.

For Rev. DiSabatino, the demand came with individuals knocking on doors asking for food, water, and shelter.

“I’d be working back in my office, and my doorbell would be going off all day. Can I have water? Can I use the bathroom? Can I? I was as shocked as anybody that we had people coming at the amount of time that they did,” she said.

“We have this giant building that seats almost 1,000 people, but during the week, during the daytime particularly, there’s less people here. So we thought, well, maybe we can be of service to people, and perhaps we can create some relationship with people. I think at the end of the day, my job is to create friendship with people.”

She contacted the Calgary Homeless Foundation to begin what would become a partnership that began offering those wrap-around services to unhoused individuals. Instead of tents set up in and around the church, it became a safe place for unhoused individuals to get warm and find the support they need.

But that Christian desire to follow the tenets of the faith, in the words of Luke, “whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise,” has not always been appreciated Rocky Ridge residents.

Warming centre not welcomed warmly by all members of Rocky Ridge

Safety concerns, many of them resulting from personal interactions between residents of the community and unhoused individuals, have been raised.

In a recent town hall held in September, and reported on by the Calgary Herald, one resident was quoted as saying she had been accosted by an individual on the pathway system.

Others talked about their discomfort with having unhoused individuals in their community.

According to Calgary Police Statistics, the community has had one of the lowest rates of social disorder in Calgary, with 15 incidents per 100,000 people in 2024.

Comparatively, the East Village had 762 per 100,000 people in the same period.

DiSabatino said the church has put in place a number of solutions to address the concerns of community members.

Among those are a zero-tolerance policy for encampments on their property, no substance use at the warming centre, a security team on-site during the days that the warming centre is in operation, regular tracking of individuals who use the warming centre, including contact with the Calgary Police Service and City of Calgary Bylaw Services Vulnerable Persons Team, and emergency contact numbers posted on all the doors of the building.

It allows the church to focus on providing secular services to unhoused individuals in a way that gives them trust in those who have been providing those services, and a safe place to find help.

Jacob Schlinker, Program Lead for Partnerships and Development with the Distress Centre at The Source, said that has led to numerous successes in helping to address Calgary’s homelessness crisis.

“We’ve seen more engagement from the community, more people accessing services. We’ve had more volunteers coming in. Yeah, we just continue to build and provide a safe space where we can give folks their basic needs, as well as connecting folks to the wide variety of resources that are available in the community, making those connections so that folks have services to access and spaces to go when they’re not here.”

He said that often what happens is that people come to the warming centre, get warm food and something to drink, and maybe dry clothing to replace the wet clothing they have on from living outdoors—and then the process can begin to provide them longer-term supports to address the systemic reasons why they are unhoused.

“Once we’ve identified that folks are feeling safe and comfortable, then our team will engage with them to connect to, whether it be treatment applications or any of our programs down at Source,” Schlinker said.

One of the new programs beginning in 2025 to support unhoused individuals, said Schlinker, was an access to justice program to help unhoused individuals navigate the justice system. It’s an issue that had been brought up repeatedly in 2024, during the Legal Aid crisis in Alberta.

“We recognize that there are some barriers and needs around justice to be addressed, and that can get in the way of things like housing and attaining resources. So that team supports folks with getting to community courts, and providing them with legal information,” he said.

Coordination is making a difference

One of the big changes for 2024, said Bo Masterson, Vice President of Stakeholder Engagement with the Calgary Homeless Foundation, was an increased level of coordination between partner agencies.

Longer hours at the warming centres have also been adding to the success in addressing more systematic issues with unhoused individuals, she said.

“Warming spaces are open longer hours this year, and into weekends, which serves people where they’re at and when they need it, rather than on a nine to five schedule, which we all live on, but not everyone does,” Masterson said.

“Last year, we saw over 2,300 unique individuals using the spaces. We had about 1,700 using the transit shuttles, and we gave out over 200,000 essential items. And we expect that to be very similar, if not more, due to the better coordination this year.”

The lessons learned from last year have led to improvements in responses like those of the Salvation Army’s pop-up warming centres in locations where they are most needed, she said.

The opportunity to use the centres to connect individuals with programs is another way they want to find more success in the new year.

In addition to the justice programming, she said that there would be tax filing help which in turn would give unhoused individuals access to government programs connected to the CRA.

“We have this picture of homelessness that looks like people being on the streets, but homelessness looks like couch surfing. Homelessness looks like staying with family members. Homelessness looks like shelter. We know kind of that definition is broadening,” Masterson said.

“The hope is, people come in, they need warmth, they need food, they need those basic needs. But it’s also an opportunity to build human connection and then to build a relationship that will actually lead to that transformative pathway.”