Press Hits

The Calgary Outlink Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity has called the ‘Old Y’ home for nearly 50 years. During the time, staff have seen the immense impact the community hub has had on everyone who walks through the doors. “People just show up here,” says Outlink’s director of operations, Emma Ladouceur. “They don’t always know us by name, they don’t always know the particular services, but they know this is a place where they will find help and will be met with safety and understanding.”

Several dozen Calgary agencies have joined together to try to stop a historic Beltline building from being vacated at the end of the month. The organizations involved work in the building – Calgary’s ‘Old YWCA,’ also known as the Arusha Centre – which sits at 223 12 Ave. S.W. The city had a lease with the Community Wise Resources Centre (CWRC), a nonprofit that has since terminated their lease and left the building. Now, the city has released an Expression of Interest for the buildings, seeking a tenant it can work with to preserve the building and maintain the space. The Save the Old Y coalition is made up of 65 organizations, all of whom will be forced out of the building come September 30.

Dozens of Calgary groups are raising the alarm, saying they are being forced by the city to relocate from a historic Beltline building by the end of the month. The ‘Save the Old Y Coalition’ says 65 community agencies will be without a place to offer much-needed services come October, because the City of Calgary is putting up the lease for the historic YWCA building on 12 Avenue SW. The group says the building has been a community hub since 1979 and its loss would “uproot an essential public gathering place, and leave a major gap in mental health, youth, arts, culture and many other services.”

Some non-profit groups are sounding the alarm about the risks of a vacant historic property, where they and dozens of other associations have operated from, as the city decides on a new leaseholder. At a rally on Wednesday, they said they will have to vacate their offices at the city-owned YWCA building which they have called home for decades after a lease between their landlord — Community Wise Resource Centre — and the city comes to a close on September 30.

Community groups have until the end of the month to vacate the old Y building on 12th Ave after the building’s main tenant moved out. 65 of them will be displaced. The Arusha Centre wants to take over the lease while the city works out a long term plan for the building.

Le gouvernement Houston a lancé sa rentrée législative en annonçant deux nouveaux projets de loi dont un « omnibus » qui vise à modifier huit lois. L’opposition officielle a pointé du doigt un texte de loi « bâclé », qui manque de transparence. Le projet de loi de « protection des Néo-Écossais » prévoit des dispositions relatives à la protection des données, à la formation des videurs, au soutien aux victimes de violences conjugales et aux nouveaux pouvoirs permettant de faire face aux manifestants qui bloquent les routes forestières sur les terres de la Couronne.