Last night, Calgary city council denied and delayed a 24-hour care facility that would have housed the most complex of Calgary’s homeless population.

This facility would’ve provided 24-hour care to individuals who frequently require the support of emergency, crisis response, and public safety systems and who are experiencing long-term homelessness.

For a council focused on public safety, this is a glaring decision to leave our most complex homeless population –  people suffering from mental health crises, substance abuse issues, and physical health issues –  on the street without anywhere to go. There are no shelters in all of Calgary prepared to deal with Calgarians with such complex needs.

The search for a suitable site for this high-complexity facility took two and a half years of work before it made its way in front of City Council.

The reasons it was defeated?

First, it is because it was on a patch of grass in between parking lots in an industrial area off Barlow Trail. Councillor Chabot stated that many local businesses wanted to refurbish the grass into a park between the parking lots.

And second, because some councillors believe there are too many social supports east of Deerfoot.

Here’s what they turned down

The proposed site from Calgary’s Home Space Society was on the corner of 25 Street NE & 3 Ave SE. It has access to great public transit being only minutes from Franklin Station. This location avoids putting a high-complexity facility in a residential community or neighbourhood, a move likely done to avoid NIMBY attitudes. The site would have no impact on public parking. There are no schools nearby. It has close access to jobs and hospitals.

Ward 9 Coun. Harrison Clark, who voted to delay this project, previously made comments regarding this project and how it fits with Ward 9’s local communities. He suggested that the problem isn’t the facility, but that placing it here in the Meridian industrial park is problematic because Ward 9 has too many services that support people facing poverty. He sees it as a concentration that he would like to change through a fairer distribution of care facilities across the city.

According to Clark, Ward 9 and 10 communities are oversaturated relative to the rest of the City.  “This is a legacy issue. This is the way we’ve done it for many decades now, and it’s always landed in the same neighbourhoods.”

Home Space’s proposed 24-hour wrap-around care facility is in Ward 10.

I don’t disagree that there is a tendency to concentrate support services where there are the highest rates of poverty in a city, which inevitably creates a geographic cycle of poverty.

Lower-income communities are often used as a scapegoat by wealthier city-wide NIMBYs who suggest that there are “more appropriate” places for people facing poverty. It’s a song and dance that usually ends up with poverty concentration in pockets across Calgary, most often in the NE and SE communities. Councillor Clark is right that to build balanced communities, we need a broader distribution of services city-wide rather than a concentration east of Deerfoot.

However, this facility is one of a kind. There are no 24-hour care facilities in Calgary for this population of high-need and high-complexity people. We would need four facilities to support the 250 people that the Calgary Homeless Foundation identified as high-complexity.

There was an opportunity to put forward a motion to build one facility in every quadrant. Instead, Council chose to build none and to start the process over.

Instead of serving those in need today, Calgary city council made the choice to leave the Calgarians most in need with no place to go.

Manufactured motion to delay

In an effort to avoid losing this file entirely, Mayor Farkas manufactured a motion that passed, which directs city administration to start the search over with Home Space Society, including authorizing the city to look at buying private land.

In council, Home Space and city administration noted that if this place isn’t suitable, they’re not sure where else will ever be suitable.

The key difference in restarting the process to find suitable land is that administration may now look at purchasing land privately. This just means the project will be more expensive, face more delays, and will still face the same community opposition no matter where it goes.

Nonetheless, it gives Council the ability to say they didn’t kill it entirely, just delayed it, which inevitably makes it more expensive.

The motion to start from scratch passed 10-5, with Councillors Schmidt, Kelly, Dhaliwal, Yule, and Atkinson against.

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Just a few days ago, Mayor Farkas called the 2026 federal budget “laughable” because of its lack of supports for Calgary. However, the 2026 budget includes massive announcements on ending homelessness, specifically highlighting that when municipalities and provinces can come together and create a plan, the federal government will be a willing partner in solving homelessness.

The 2026 budget marked more than $1 billion to kickstart ending homelessness in Winnipeg. Prime Minister Carney said that because the city and the province had a plan, the federal government responded with the cash.

While Mayor Farkas and some members of Calgary city council are reversing and publicly talking about defunding Calgary’s housing strategy, other cities are stepping up, and they’re being recognized for it with $1 billion in federal investments.

Where is Calgary’s plan? I’ll accept a concept of a plan at the very least.

Mayor Farkas said in his comments that “no one on this Council wants to vote against this.”

In a 10-5 vote, they basically did anyway, forcing the city and Home Space to start again.  

That’s laughable.