An alleged stabbing outside a northwest daycare and church that offers refuge to the homeless has sparked outrage from local residents and renewed calls to shut down the project. Read More
A woman said she witnessed a stabbing outside the Journey Church homeless refuge on Thursday, but police could find no evidence of it
A woman said she witnessed a stabbing outside the Journey Church homeless refuge on Thursday, but police could find no evidence of it
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An alleged stabbing outside a northwest daycare and church that offers refuge to the homeless has sparked outrage from local residents and renewed calls to shut down the project.
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A woman who said she’s been monitoring the comings and goings at the day centre at Journey Church in Rocky Ridge said she saw a man who’d left the refuge on Thursday afternoon stab another apparently homeless man, with the assailant and others smoking drugs.
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“One of the very last men to come out of the warming centre . . . took a blade out of his backpack and walked over to the individual and stabbed him several times,” Heather Hall Ponte wrote on two community Facebook pages, one of them set up specifically to discuss issues surrounding the day centre.
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Hall Ponte said she confronted one of the church workers, insisting the homeless refuge has brought social disorder to the community on the city’s far northwest edge.
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“I rolled down my (vehicle) window and I said, “‘in the name of Jesus, this is what you have brought into our community by having your warming centre . . . your church is going to be in trouble very soon if you don’t stop this.’ “
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The stabbing, she said, occurred just off of church property next to the Tuscany Station LRT parking lot where a homeless encampment has been regularly visible.
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She said police detained the assailant but told her they couldn’t lay charges because the victim had left, but that one officer said “they get called to that spot and (a nearby one) up to 15 times a week.”
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On Friday, city police said they responded to a call about a stabbing at the site at around 4:50 p.m. Thursday but no charges were laid because no victim could be found — and they weren’t able to confirm there was a stabbing.
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Hall Ponte declined an interview, but her concerns come a month after it was announced the church has become one of two year-round warming and cooling centres to assist the homeless in Calgary.
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Some local residents are scheduled to meet with the centre’s operators next week for a tour and to outline their concerns.
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Located at the northwest church and The Mustard Seed’s Community Impact Centre, the spaces evolved from the Extreme Weather Response program — a partnership that began in 2022 between the Calgary Homeless Foundation, the City of Calgary and Distress Centre Calgary.
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