CALGARY—City shelter and addictions outreach centre Alpha House was operating in its Victoria Park location for nearly 25 years before gleaming condos started rising over its roof.

But a group of people living in a 2008-era tower built across the street say they want to see the service move somewhere else.

Board members at Vetro, a condo complex at 15 Ave. and 1 St. S.E., began circulating a petition this week to generate support for relocating Alpha House, which has been in its current location since 1982.

Alpha House Society operates a number of services, including a shelter that can accommodate up to 120 people. Its doors are open for people who are under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and who would otherwise be turned away from “dry” shelters. Clients can self-refer 24 hours a day.

Some condo board members say safety issues, harassment and vandalism in the area have “reached a boiling point” and blame Alpha House clients. As of Wednesday evening, the petition — which shelter officials said contained some misinformation — had nearly 300 signatures.

Aman Dhillon, a Vetro board member, shared the petition online on Monday. The document says that the current location of the shelter “is not conducive to the vibrant development that is planned for Victoria Park/Stampede.”

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Dhillon’s building and Alpha House are both very close to the Stampede grounds, where the city is currently renovating the BMO Centre and pursuing plans for a new “cultural and entertainment district” that’s likely to include a new arena.

Dhillon also said he questions whether Alpha House has the right resources to help their clients, and despite conversations that the building’s board has had with the shelter in the past, he said some condo residents still don’t feel safe, and issues with noise and property damage haven’t been adequately addressed.

“We feel it’s a lost cause, and that’s why we brought the petition forward.”

Dhillon acknowledges that Alpha House was in the area before Vetro. But he said he didn’t realize what it was when he moved into his new building in 2008. Alpha House was undergoing a renovation at the time, and he said he thought it was a restaurant. He said others bought units in Vetro under the assumption that Alpha House would eventually be moved.

Alpha House executive director Kathy Christiansen said her organization spoke to the surrounding community extensively when they were expanding in the late 2000s. She said the work they put into those renovations, finished around the time Vetro residents moved in, doesn’t support the idea that they would move.

“We wouldn’t have invested significantly in this site if we were planning on leaving.”

She said the neighbourhood has changed around Alpha House, but it remains an important and accessible place for people who need housing and addiction services as well as other support services.

“We take our role in the community seriously, but we also take the fact that there’s a population of individuals that really do need some care. Our programs are very much geared to a very vulnerable group of folks.”

She emphasized that she doesn’t see the building’s residents or its board as enemies, and she’s always willing to meet and address neighbourhood concerns. But she is also worried that the petition contains misinformation about the shelter.

The petition says Alpha House has “reached capacity,” which it claims leads to clients being turned away, so that they are loitering on the street or trespassing on condo property. But Christiansen said Alpha House doesn’t turn people away, and they’re not constantly full.

Often, she said, activities that people see on the streets, including fighting or drug use, are “what trauma looks like at the street level.” Christiansen said Alpha House sometimes offers training courses to break down myths about homelessness and give people crisis intervention tools. She said they can be an effective way to build community bridges.

“We’re trying to do more of that because we feel the more we share information about the people that we serve, the better it is for the clients we serve — it lifts the mystery, the fear.”

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Dhillon said he isn’t advocating for shutting down Alpha House entirely, but he questions “whether rehabilitation is actually happening there or just enablement.”

“I’m actually thinking about this for the well-being of the people that go there because I don’t see them being rehabilitated,” he said.

But people don’t typically stay at Alpha House for long periods of time, Christiansen said. And their services operate using a harm-reduction approach to reach people who are in crisis.

“We really monitor how people use our shelter and how frequently they’re in there,” she said. Sixty per cent of clients come between one and six times, and then don’t return. And for a small group of people who are long-term repeat clients, the shelter acts a resource for ensuring their quality of life is as good as possible, offering health and housing resources.

She said there’s often staff outside the shelter and there is also a direct number members of the public can call in case of safety issues around Alpha House.

Since the petition began circulating online, organizations that support harm reduction and homeless support services have spoken up in defence of Alpha House. Drug-use education organization Change the Face of Addiction Alberta wrote on Twitter Wednesday that Calgary’s “NIMBY is showing.”

The acronym refers to the phrase “not in my backyard,” and is often applied to people who oppose development or certain services operating in their neighbourhood.

Francisco Alaniz Uribe, the co-director of the University of Calgary’s Urban Lab, said these types of conversations about neighbourhood conflicts need to be approached carefully. The solution of moving the shelter might not be valid, he said, but that doesn’t mean neighbourhood residents’ concerns should be dismissed outright.

“It is important to understand,” he said. “We need to be very conscious that the current environment in terms of what we see in the media, what is in social media, how we are speaking to each other.”

Housing, businesses and social services can absolutely co-exist within the same part of a city, he said. And if this effort begins a more open conversation that respectfully includes local residents, city officials and Alpha House staff and clients, that isn’t a bad thing.

Dhillon maintains that the petition isn’t coming from a NIMBY standpoint. And moving Alpha House might not be necessary, he said, if some of his community’s issues can be addressed.

“I can appreciate this is a sensitive matter with no easy solution,” he said. “But it’s uncomfortable discussion that needs to be had. We don’t want to just push the Alpha House out of our community and then have the same thing happen in another community. So it’s not just a matter of kicking them out of our backyard, but we want to actually make sure that they are getting sober.”

Christiansen said the process of reaching out to the surrounding community to explain the purpose of her organization’s services and their harm-reduction approach is something they’ve done for a long time, and they’ll continue to be open to dialogue.

“We care about how the people across the street feel,” she said.

“We really hope that through dialogue and sharing information about our work, that people embrace everything about the community. That’s what one would hope.”

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