The biggest need we see is for more supportive housing and operational support to provide that housing, particularly for really complex individuals. The Calgary Drop-In Centre is a low-barrier shelter, and the complexity of the people we see continues to increase year over year. The challenge is that there is nowhere for them to go, so they continue to languish in shelter. They are often our high system users who are very visible in downtown cores, and we need to address that really complex population to help with some of the visibility issues. More and more, people in the community don't want to see them. They don't really care what happens; they just don't want to see them.
We have an opportunity to really modernize our homeless-serving systems of care to be relentlessly housing-focused, from prevention to getting somebody into recovery treatment and housing. That's what I would recommend: that we look at the continuum and work together with provincial partners to ensure that we're all rowing in the same direction and not operating in silos.
