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Calgary Homeless Foundation guides the fight against homelessness in Calgary.

We advise governments, service providers, and community leaders on how to best leverage their combined resources and programs in a unified fight against homelessness.

Together, we envision the day when homelessness is rare, brief and non-recurring—perhaps an episode in someone’s life, but never a condition that defines it.

About Calgary Homeless Foundation
Calgary Homeless Foundation was founded in 1998 when local philanthropist Arthur “Art” R. Smith joined forces with agencies, corporations, and governments to create an organization that would serve the rapidly growing number of people experiencing homelessness in the city.

Thanks to a generous gift from Ralph Klein, then-premier of Alberta, we opened our doors in the historic McDougall Centre—a former school and one of the first major public buildings in the province.

From the outset, Calgary Homeless Foundation was envisioned as an umbrella organization. It would coordinate programs and policies across the homeless-serving sector, increase housing, educate the public about homelessness and change policies to better serve Indigenous peoples.

As a result, our first task was to investigate and increase public awareness about the extent of the homelessness crisis in Calgary. At the time, the city had the fastest-growing population of people experiencing homelessness in Canada, with numbers jumping 31% every two years.

In 2000, we unveiled a report called Housing Our Homeless. The report identified eight sectors of the homeless population, including families, domestic violence survivors, seniors, and those living with substance use issues. It concluded that each sector required a tailored response to address their unique needs.

We then took steps to transform our work into a community-wide movement. In 2002, we launched the Calgary Community Land Trust, and by the end of three years, the trust was managing and held title to 10 affordable housing units.

In a 2006 Calgary Herald editorial entitled “A New Strategy to End Homelessness,” we also called on the community to help people experiencing homelessness, including children, teenagers and women, noting that the government alone could not solve the problem.

===Our History ===


 * Pre-Calgary Homeless Foundation
 * From the early 1990’s to 2006, Calgary had Canada’s fastest growing population of people experiencing homelessness.


 * 1998 - The Beginning
 * Businessman and philanthropist Art Smith founds Calgary Homeless Foundation.
 * 2003
 * Calgary Community Land Trust (CCLT), a part of Calgary Homeless Foundation, owns 10 affordable housing units. CCLT later becomes HomeSpace Society.
 * 2008
 * Calgary Homeless Foundation launches Housing First program with The Alex.
 * Calgary’s 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness is launched. Thanks to the Plan, nearly 10,000 individuals are housed and 2,184 new housing program spaces are created, decreasing homelessness by 32% per capita and emergency shelter use by 35%.
 * 2011
 * The Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS) is unveiled.
 * Under the System Planning Framework, the system of care for people experiencing homelessness is strengthened by coordinating the HMIS, performance management and quality assurance.
 * 2012
 * The Calgary Collaborative Capital Campaign becomes the first-of-its-kind collaboration with 9 partner agencies, including Calgary Homeless Foundation, working together to raise the capital to create affordable housing with support services for homeless Calgarians.  At the campaign’s conclusion on March 31, 2018, $74 million had been raised, enough to provide 1,850 Calgarians with a home.
 * 2018
 * In 2018, Calgary’s 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness ends, and a new plan called Together to Zero is launched. This plan, created with community, unveils new strategic directives for the homeless-serving system, including the goal of ensuring that homelessness never happens, or if it does, if it s a brief and non-recurring episode in a person’s life.

External links section
Permanent memorial unveiled in Calgary to commemorate all who died while experiencing homelessnessNew Calgary memorial honours lives lost to homelessness

'This is a sanctuary':Advocates unveil permanent memorial for Calgary's homeless