Sheltering Calgary's homeless shouldn't depend on weather: advocates

The problem of people living on the streets doesn't disappear when the seasons change, sayadvocates for the homeless whowantAlberta officials to come up with a year-roundhousing plan for those in need.

Diana Segboer, executive director of a church-run shelter program called Inn From the Cold in Calgary,wasresponding Tuesday to the closure of an emergency wintershelter that has left hundreds homeless.

Segboer says she is tired of hearing the current crisis in Calgary is about falling mercury and snowy streets.

"This isn't about weather. This isn't about whether it's 50 above or 30 below. This is about the fact that people are not able to get shelter," she says. "It's the fact that we aren't able to house the people that we are drawing to this city."

On Monday night, city officials opened an emergency shelter in an office building in the northeast,withroomfor 100 homeless people.

Just a day before, the cityclosed down a temporary shelter in the former Brick building on 16th Avenue North that held 300 people to make wayfor a planned road widening.

The city is senselessly going from crisis to crisis depending on the weather, saidAld. Bob Hawkesworth, chair of city council's community and protective services committee.

"The crisis of homelessness in this city doesn't go away if the weather gets warmer. So we need to find some other mechanisms to manage this issue."

Hawkesworth says while the city is working on ways to meet the immediate crisis, it's up to the province to be the leader in solving the underlying issue – a lack of affordable housing.

Tough toturn people away: shelter

On Sunday, the day the shelter in the former Brick closed, the phone rang non-stop at InnFrom the Cold with people looking for a place to stay, says Segboer.

When the doors opened that afternoon, Segboer says, the lineup was about 50 people more than usual.

She says the only way to choose who will get a warm place to sleep is to draw names, and shehas watched people's faces sink when they are told there is no space for them.

"It's a pretty tough thing to do."

Segboer says the program was created for families, but the situation in Calgary has reached a crisis, so if there is extra space, it is offered to individuals.

City can'thelp if it's warmer than -15 C

No dollar figure has yet been attachedto the cost of the latest efforts to shelter the homeless at the Whithorn Multi Services Centre, theheadquarters for the city's emergency medical services, Hawkesworth said.

Emergency powers granted to the fire department forbid the city from opening an emergency shelter until the temperature falls below -15 C.

So, the city had to find another way, he says, in this case, by having Emergency Medical Services set up a shelter, calling it a humanitarian act. Hawkesworth says it may be awkward, but the city has no choice but to follow the rules.

"The City of Calgary can't violate any of its own legislation or anybody else's laws. So yes, it does tie our hands, but we also have to be respectful of the rules and regulations."