The invisible infrastructure that’s helped reduce the rate of homelessness can continue to effectively address the issue, writes Patricia Jones, the President and CEO of the Calgary Homeless Foundation. Jones is one of three dozen community leaders who are writing guest columns as part of a virtual think-tank created in conjunction with the Postmedia Calgary project Countdown to 2 Million. Photo courtesy of Calgary Homeless Foundation.
Op-Ed, Calgary Herald
Credit: Patricia Jones
Publish date: February 21, 2026
When I’m out in the community and people learn about our work at Calgary Homeless Foundation, I hear the same thing again and again: ‘’You say Calgary is making progress with homelessness, but that’s not what I see downtown. That’s not what I see on the CTrain.”
They’re right. What Calgarians see every day is real. Someone sleeping in a doorway at -20 C. A mental health crisis unfolding in front of a small business. People who are deeply unwell, struggling on our streets.
Population growth spreads across our entire city, but homelessness concentrates in high-traffic areas. Downtown. Transit lines. Where services are located. And increasingly, in neighbourhoods across Calgary. Drugs like methamphetamine have also changed the face of homelessness — people are more visibly in crisis, their behaviour more unpredictable. It’s understandable if you find that frightening.
But something remarkable is also happening in our city.
Championed by corporate Calgary and supported by the Government of Alberta, the Government of Canada, the City of Calgary, and non‐profit partners, Calgary Homeless Foundation’s effort has helped reduce the rate of homelessness by 40 per cent since 2008 — all while the city grew by nearly half a million people.
In fact, for nearly two decades, Calgary has been developing a strategic, co-ordinated response to homelessness in our city that is a model for the rest of Alberta.
This is the “invisible infrastructure” that is as essential to our city’s future — and the two million people who will soon call it home — as roads, transit and bridges.
This is why we’ve been successful.
Invisible infrastructure includes real-time data across our entire system — tracking who’s been housed, who’s still waiting, and where capacity exists. It’s the triage system matching people to the right supports. It’s the supportive housing you walk past each day without realizing that inside, struggling Calgarians are getting the help they need to get back on their feet. It’s the tight co-ordination between community and housing partners, and support services that helps get people off the street and into safe places where they can rebuild their lives.
Calgary Homeless Foundation sits at the centre of this work. We don’t run shelters or deliver frontline services, but we see the whole system at once — the pressures, the gaps, where help is needed most. That perspective lets us convene governments, agencies, police, outreach teams, and frontline workers, so everyone operates from the same information, and the right supports reach the right people at the right time. When we work as a system, homelessness becomes something people move through, not something they’re stuck in.
The people you see struggling on our streets, the ones who make you uneasy or afraid, are caught in the gap we haven’t closed yet. They’re not proof the system is failing. They’re proof of how much work remains.
But the reality is resources aren’t limitless. Governments at every level face budget pressures. That’s exactly why our approach matters. When someone cycles through emergency rooms, police interactions, and shelters without stable housing, the costs can be staggering. It all adds up. Housing someone with supports costs far less and delivers better outcomes for everyone. Our model saves money by preventing those expensive cycles from repeating again and again.
At Calgary Homeless Foundation, we talk a lot about a future where homelessness is “rare, brief, and non-recurring.” That means fewer people ever experiencing a night with nowhere safe to sleep. It means no one spends long stretches in our shelter system. It means someone who loses their housing gets back into it quickly, with the support they need to stay housed.
It means we can avoid the homelessness crisis that has overtaken so many other cities.
As Calgary grows to two million people and beyond, we face a choice: Will we strengthen the invisible infrastructure that’s kept homelessness stable as we’ve grown? Or will we let what’s working break under the pressure of our growth? The foundation is built. What we do next is up to us.
Patricia Jones is the President and CEO of Calgary Homeless Foundation, known for her visionary, collaborative approach as a leader in Calgary’s non-profit sector. She holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Social Work from the University of Calgary and built her career serving the community.
This article is brought to you by The Calgary Herald, as part of their special Postmedia Calgary series Countdown to 2 Million. They created a virtual think-tank of three dozen community leaders who are sharing their thoughts on how to build the best Calgary. Visit the original Op-Ed on their website at Think Tank Member Patricia Jones, or find more columns and related videos at calgaryherald.com/countdown-to-2-million .
