System innovation & capacity building
Strengthening the sector through innovation and evidence
We drive system-wide improvements through cutting-edge technology, comprehensive training programs, and ongoing evaluations.
Building a better homelessness response for a growing city
As Calgary continues to grow, we’ve intensified our focus on system efficiency. We’re also looking to develop new technologies to help the sector operate more effectively. System efficiency matters because when resources are limited, innovation becomes essential. By strengthening cross-agency coordination, promoting data-driven decisions across the sector, and enhancing frontline capabilities through targeted training, we ensure our community’s response grows as our city does.
MAGE is a helpful tool for our outreach teams to plan client appointments as it clearly shows camp locations and date and time last visited, which is a critical part of staying connected to the population of rough sleepers we work with.
The app’s share feature is also extremely helpful as it ensures we aren’t duplicating our response with other outreach teams and allows us to be more efficient with case planning and locating new clients. We appreciate CHF’s work in bringing this app to the forefront of the sector and in continuing to find new ways to coordinate a more collaborative response to outreach work in Calgary.
Alpha House’s Encampment Team
The Alex’s CHF-funded programs have greatly appreciated the opportunity to collaborate with CHF’s Evaluation Manager in developing a programmatic Theory of Change across our five funded initiatives.
This process has helped each program more clearly define its core objectives, articulate the key activities required to achieve them, and identify the necessary metrics, training, and outcomes to support success.
Steven Richardson
Director of Housing & Outreach, The Alex
Academic researchers have the time and training to apply new ideas and techniques to solving difficult problems of public policy.
What they don’t always have is access to information essential for developing and evaluating proposed solutions. Researchers at the School of Public Policy are extremely grateful for the relationship we have established with Calgary Homeless Foundation. The data they provide and the informed advice and criticism we receive are essential to our efforts to make useful contributions to the understanding of homelessness and to evaluating the effectiveness of possible policy responses.
Ron Kneebone
Director of Social Policy Research, The School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary
How we’re strengthening the entire sector
Bringing partners together
We convene diverse community partners around shared goals and quality standards, strengthening the entire sector through capacity building and knowledge sharing. Our coordination helps create a cohesive system where all agencies can perform at their best. We regularly convene CEO roundtables and meetings with agency staff where everyone discusses ideas and trends. We also mobilize collective responses when system-wide challenges emerge.
Deploying cutting-edge tools
We’re rolling out new technologies like MAGE, our innovative geo-tracking app transforming encampment response. Calgary is one of the very first communities in Canada gaining real-time visibility into encampment needs and changing how outreach teams coordinate their vital work. We’re also implementing our Coordinated Entry Tool (CET), which creates a more trauma-informed experience by maintaining centralized service histories so individuals don’t have to repeatedly retell their often-traumatic stories.
Generating data-driven insights
Our community-informed data warehouse provides insights no other organization can deliver, integrating multiple data sources to track individual pathways through the system over time. We share system-level data and trends with our partners, helping agencies make informed decisions while providing comprehensive analysis that would be unavailable to individual organizations. This bird’s-eye view enables us to identify gaps, prevent duplications, and guide strategic investments.
Optimizing government & donor dollars
Our sophisticated data capabilities translate complex homelessness issues into clear insights that support decision-making and ensure policy intentions translate into outcomes that maximize the impact of every dollar and every resource. We help ensure fair resource allocation based on evidence rather than relationships, and our neutral position allows us to implement priorities while maintaining trust across the system.
Evaluation & innovation
Understanding how and why people change while in programs is an essential piece in an effective homelessness response. Our Theory of Change framework helps programs map expected outcomes across four key domains of recovery: physical and mental health, financial stability, connection to community, and housing.
We also hold mid-year program reviews to assess progress, gather information on trends and issues, and to provide feedback that can be incorporated in the second half of the year. Finally, we monitor program dashboards ongoing for standard program outputs, such as occupancy levels and exit rates. This innovative culture of learning and evaluation is revealing powerful insights into what truly creates lasting pathways out of homelessness—knowledge that can transform how our community addresses this challenge for years to come.
Powering Calgary’s coordinated response through data
Our Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) and data warehouse provide real-time dashboards and analytics that enable informed decisions across the entire sector. Agencies spend hundreds of hours monthly using our platform to better serve people experiencing homelessness.
850+
frontline staff using HMIS to coordinate services for those experiencing homelessness.
40
frontline agencies accessing shared insights through our data warehouse.
150+
programs tracking outcomes and coordinating referrals.
Facilitating community collaborations
Calgary’s homelessness response extends beyond traditional service providers to include healthcare workers, recovery coaches, bylaw officers, transit operators, police, Indigenous Elders and knowledge keepers, and other community touchpoints where people experiencing homelessness intersect with city systems. We bring these diverse stakeholders together around shared outcomes, creating alignment that transforms individual efforts into unified solutions that address homelessness from every angle.
How we support frontline agencies
Through strategic partnerships, we help maximize the impact of our collective resources and create lasting pathways out of homelessness for Calgarians. We work closely with agencies to create consistency in approaches and make it easier to navigate the system on behalf of clients.
How we gather data and generate insights
Our data warehouse helps agencies and governments make evidence-based decisions. We track individual pathways through the system over time, forecast emerging trends, and assess program effectiveness to ensure resources are being optimally allocated.