Our role
Calgary Homeless Foundation (CHF) is a purpose-driven organization that allocates resources to frontline agencies in Calgary’s homeless-serving system of care.
We work in alignment with governments and collaboratively with service providers and our community partners. We help translate complex system needs into coordinated, efficient ground-level action that maximizes the impact of every resource and creates lasting pathways out of homelessness.
We support stakeholders and coordinate services across Calgary’s homelessness response system
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Our work with governments
Responding to homelessness in a fast-growing city like Calgary requires coordination across stakeholders and governments. We’re proud to work with all levels of government to help more people find their way home.
Government of Canada
CHF works with the federal government through the Reaching Home strategy to address chronic homelessness and support community-led coordination. As the Community Entity for Calgary, CHF allocates funds, oversees coordinated access to supportive housing, and ensures resources are directed where they’re most needed while working closely with the Community Advisory Board. CHF also works closely with the Reaching Home Indigenous Community Entity, G4 (Stoney Nakoda – Tsuut’ina Tribal Council) to coordinate and guide system development that reflects Indigenous priorities.
Government of Alberta
CHF is proud to work in partnership with the provincial government to support individuals experiencing homelessness. Our partnership aligns with government priorities leveraging CHF’s expertise in system planning, sector wide training and accreditation, and a results-based framework to ensure public investments achieve sustained impact through coordinated, system-wide responses. Our data warehouse, unique amongst our peers in Canada, helps the Government of Alberta make evidence-based policy and funding decisions while translating those decisions into real action.
City of Calgary
CHF allocates funds on behalf of the City of Calgary and collaborates on the following initiatives: Extreme Weather Response, Day Spaces, and Outreach Coordination. Together we leverage relationships with police, bylaw, and transit services to create truly coordinated responses. This partnership combines CHF’s agency relationships, community coordination efforts, and data capacity with The City’s ability to coordinate municipal services for comprehensive homelessness response.
Financial overview
As a trusted steward of public and philanthropic resources, our efficient and effective use of funding ensures the vast majority of every dollar directly supports Calgary’s homelessness response. This commitment to efficiency and transparency has earned the confidence of government partners and donors alike, who trust us to allocate resources where they can achieve the greatest impact for Calgary’s citizens.
Funding sources
Funding uses
One of the top charities in Canada
Calgary Homeless Foundation has earned recognition as a 5-star charity from Charity Intelligence, achieving top ratings across all key performance metrics. We’ve demonstrated excellence in financial transparency, earned an A+ grade for results reporting, and shown high impact in our programming. We’re proud stewards of public and philanthropic resources, maintaining one of the lowest administrative overhead rates in the sector.
This recognition reflects our unwavering commitment to accountability, transparency, and measurable impact in Calgary’s fight against homelessness.
Supporting agencies on the front lines
Frontline agencies are essential to Calgary’s homelessness response. We work closely with a wide range of frontline organizations working to fight homelessness. This includes those focused on adults, families, youth and Indigenous organizations.
System innovation & capacity building
Through sector-wide training, accreditation programs, and our culture of learning and evaluation, we elevate the capabilities of Calgary’s entire homelessness response system. Our innovative approaches are revealing unprecedented insights into what interventions truly work.
Data that transforms systems and lives
Our community-informed data warehouse integrates multiple quantitative and qualitative data sources to create a network of information difficult to replicate. This enables us to track individual pathways, forecast emerging trends, and provide evidence-based guidance across the entire sector.