Thank you for that.
During COVID, we had significant encampments build up outside of our main shelter facility in the downtown core of Calgary, and it was becoming very unsafe for individuals who were out there, for people trying to seek access to our services and for our staff to come to work.
We approached the Calgary Police Service with the idea of working collaboratively with them to address the safety issues of those encampments with a social-service-first, enforcement-second approach. We found there were many individuals in the encampment who were housed in the community but were using tents as cover for organized crime.
We took the time to figure out who was who in there and who was vulnerable and who was being predatory, and we really targeted social service interventions for those who were the most vulnerable and worked with them first. We housed 32 individuals directly from the encampment as part of that exercise. It was called Operation East Side. It was highly collaborative with multiple departments in the city and worked very well. That is something we will continue to advocate for each and every time.