The housing crisis is leaving Ukrainian evacuees homeless in Calgary. Here's why

Snizhana Bora was forced from her home in Kharkiv by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 

She left her father, a brother and husband behind to bring her mother and four-year-old daughter to safety in Canada — only to spend the last three months in a desperate search for somewhere to live. 

"It was terrible. I really cried every day," she told CBC News. 

"[It's hard] when you've lost everything and you can't find it here — especially a house, this feeling of home."

Calgary settlement agencies that work with families like hers say chronic underfunding and a national housing crisis are leaving many newcomers homeless or in precarious housing. 

Agencies say they have found newcomers sleeping on Calgary's streets, at the airport or at homeless shelters because nothing else is available.  

After years of a slow trickle of international migration because of COVID-19, economic opportunities and global crises are driving record numbers of people to Alberta at a time when housing is increasingly unavailable and unaffordable.

Provincial data for net migration shows Alberta received about 36,000 international migrants in the first quarter of this year – about 70 per cent of total newcomers. There were nearly 30,000 in the final months of 2022. In that same period in 2019, it was 10,400 people. 

Part of the influx in recent months is more than 40,300 Ukrainian evacuees. 

Oleksandr Maltsev, his wife and their three children have been living in a hotel since their arrival at the beginning of August. They spent 18 months in Romania assisting other Ukrainians fleeing Russia's invasion. 

"Then we came to Calgary. We had only $50," he said. 

Maltsev has been looking for affordable accommodations outside of the city in places like Strathmore. He's pressed for time, as all three of his children – ages 14 ,11 and nine — need to start school and he needs to find work.

"It's a lot of stress."

The federal government is funding 75 hotel rooms in the city for two-week stays for evacuees. The Maltsevs have used up that slot and have less than a week until this second stay, paid for by a settlement agency, runs out. Alberta also offers temporary emergency accommodations for evacuees.