Community Safety in the East Village

What We’ve Heard, What’s Being Done, and Where the City’s Role Stops

Community safety has been one of the most frequent and serious issues raised with the Ward 7 Office by East Village residents, workers, and business owners. People have shared concerns about feeling unsafe, witnessing unpredictable behaviour, open drug use, and the visible strain on public spaces. These experiences are real—and they deserve clear, honest communication about what the City can do, what it’s already doing, and where other levels of government must step up.

How the Ward 7 Office has engaged the community

Since coming into office, Councillor Myke Atkinson and the Ward 7 team have engaged directly and repeatedly with East Village stakeholders to understand lived experience on the ground.

This engagement has included:

·         Extensive one‑on‑one correspondence with East Village residents, seniors, workers, and business owners who shared detailed and often traumatic experiences of day‑to‑day conditions

·         Conversations with community organizations and service providers, including the Drop‑In Centre, Alpha House, Good Neighbour, and the Salvation Army, to understand operational pressures and service gaps

·         Meetings and ride‑alongs with Calgary Police Service Districts 1, 2, and 3 to hear directly from officers about enforcement capacity, response times, and structural constraints

·         Participation in East Village Neighbourhood Association (EVNA) meetings and coordination with community partners such as Calgary Municipal Land Corporation on safety initiatives and information sharing

Across these conversations, one message has been consistent: what’s happening feels concentrated, exhausting, and unsustainable for the community.

What we’ve learned from residents

East Village residents have not been asking for rhetoric or excuses. They’ve asked for:

·         Predictable responses to safety concerns

·         Cleaner, safer public spaces

·         Fewer repeated emergency situations

·         Real coordination between street‑level services, enforcement, and outreach

Residents have also been clear that compassion and safety are not opposites. Many people expressed concern not only for themselves, but for the individuals experiencing homelessness, addiction, and mental‑health crises—recognizing that the current situation is failing everyone.

What the City is doing to improve community safety

While the City of Calgary does not control health care, income supports, addiction treatment, or housing programs (all provincial responsibilities), it does play an important role in mitigating harm and improving outcomes at the community level.

Current City‑level actions include:

·         Funding and partnerships through the Calgary Homeless Foundation to support outreach, shelter operations, and housing

·         Day Spaces and supervised public environments that reduce unsheltered crisis behaviour and connect people to services instead of pushing problems block‑to‑block

·         Targeted police presence and community counters focused on visibility and response within existing staffing limits (with CPS emphasizing that current gaps are about officer capacity—not buildings)

·         Non‑police response teams, including Alpha House’s HELP Team, Needle Response, and Encampment Outreach, which residents can access directly for non‑emergency situations

These efforts make a difference—but they do not fully resolve the problem because they are addressing the downstream effects of larger system failures.

Where the City’s authority ends

It’s important to be clear:
 The City of Calgary cannot:

·         Run or reform mental‑health and addiction treatment systems

·         Set income‑support rates or eligibility

·         Regulate health‑care delivery

·         Build or operate long‑term treatment facilities without provincial partnership

This division of responsibility means municipalities often absorb the visible impacts of decisions (or underinvestment) made at other levels of government. East Village has become a place where those gaps are most acutely felt.

How Ward 7 is advocating going forward

The Ward 7 Office is committed to pushing beyond short‑term fixes. Ongoing advocacy includes:

·         Calling for better regional distribution of services so one neighbourhood is not carrying the full burden.

·         Supporting evidence‑based, compassion‑first approaches that reduce long‑term disorder more effectively than enforcement alone

·         Pressing other orders of government to match municipal investments with provincial action in health, housing, and recovery

·         Continuing structured engagement with residents to ensure policies reflect real conditions—not assumptions

Our commitment to downtown communities

Community safety is about more than enforcement. It’s about predictability, dignity, and shared responsibility.

The Ward 7 Office will continue to:

·         Listen to residents and workers who live this reality every day

·         Be honest about what the City can and cannot do

·         Advocate for upstream solutions while strengthening local responses

·         Push for a downtown where safety and compassion reinforce—not undermine—each other

This work is difficult, ongoing, and far from finished—but it starts with transparency, engagement, and respect for those living at the centre of it.