The historic Town and Country Hotel in Calgary’s southeast holds a lot of nostalgia. The iconic landmark has many memories of times gone by, but it was also a symbol of a shameful past, a place of violence and crime.
Jacquie Meyer works with women in crisis, those who are working in the sex trade and who are exploited.
“There were murders and rapes and it was dark place,” Meyers said. But that notorious reputation inspired a transformation. The slogan is to bring it from “notorious to glorious.”
The Victory Foundation bought the building a couple of years ago. The Calgary organization working with vulnerable people is working on resurrecting the now-gutted T&C to house women, children and seniors.
“To see what it’s going to be, it’s bringing light to the dark parts of the city,” Meyers said.
“This was known as a broken postal code and it’s going to be reclaimed.”
“It’s survival for a lot of the women and there aren’t a lot of support services. There is a lack of affordable housing for these individuals — so this is amazing,” Meyers said.
Like the half-a-century-old building’s dramatic change, so too will the lives of the people living in the 48 units.
Kyle Jeffery is a pastor with the Victory outreach and said the programming will support those in need by surrounding them with a loving community.
“We provide a sense of dignity and a sense of home and a sense of value. When you don’t have that, it’s hard to make progress,” Jeffery said. “When you stumble and fail and don’t have someone there saying: ‘I believe in you.’ A lot of these people don’t have family.”
“This is full of possibility and hope.”
According to Victory Foundation’s director of housing Matt Bannerman, the need for this affordable housing complex has never been greater.
“Every month we easily receive 30 or 40 phone calls for people looking for housing and we have no place for them and have had no movement in over a year for housing for women,” Bannerman said.
“There’s 4,000 people on a waitlist for affordable housing, we have 150,000 people that are below poverty line in Calgary.”
The plan is to be sustainable without the need for ongoing funding. Don Delaney, the executive director for Victory Foundation said they will rent out space in the complex.
“If we want to help people become self-sufficient we have to be. In this building, we will have retail and the retail rents will offset rent for residents here to make it affordable,” Delaney said.
They are just over halfway towards their fundraising goal of $11 million.
” We have $4.8 million to go and we are in the process of trying for another government grant of $2 million,” Delaney said.
The hope is residents can move in next October.