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Some residents of Rocky Ridge and Royal Oak in the far northwest corner of the city have already expressed concerns about homeless encampments, open drug use and intimidation in their community.

That sentiment was heightened after a woman reported Wednesday night that she was injured when she was attacked by a heavily intoxicated man while riding her e-bike on a trail along Rocky Ridge Road NW.

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The 64-year-old said she suspects the man who jumped out of a bush in front of her and then tried to steal her bike was one of a growing number of homeless Calgary residents who are drawn to the area and to a local church that offers shelter to those in need.

“This has never happened to me before. I used to walk around at 1 a.m. and never felt unsafe,” said the woman, who did not want to give her name for fear of retaliation.

The woman, who has two black eyes, abrasions on her face and wounds on her legs and hands, said she suffered the injuries when she fell face first off her bicycle as she braked to avoid a collision with the man.

She said the man left after she yelled at him and was able to return to her nearby home on her bicycle.

“He was muttering and trying to pull me off my bike to steal it,” the woman said, adding that she was able to escape with her bike.

The woman said she reported the incident to police, who told her they knew the alleged attacker and suspected he was homeless.

“I feel sorry for these people, but this cannot be allowed to happen,” she said, adding that she volunteers with Mustard Seed, an organization that helps the homeless.

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“The city has a responsibility to the homeless and people who need help – they should be monitored and not allowed into our neighborhoods.”

Their neighbours shared this view on the municipality’s Facebook page in comments that reflect the challenges suburbs face in dealing with homeless Calgary residents.

““I may break some people’s hearts by saying this, but these camps MUST go. They are dangerous in every way. The fire hazard, the illegal and illicit activities and the smuggling are dangerous both for these people themselves and for someone who has been attacked,” said one man.

“You can’t maintain a prosperous community like this. Something has to change quickly.”

Some in the area pointed to the Journey Church next to the Tuscany LRT station, which has hosted a warming room for the homeless for the past two winters and offers a similar service three days a week during the warmer months.

A lone woman packing up her own belongings and those of other homeless people on a tree-lined church lot on Friday shrugged when told that some residents wanted to remove people like her.

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“That’s bad luck for her,” said the woman, who was wearing a red rose-print sweater and had a shopping cart full of personal items and did not want to give her name.

She said five other people had shared the room with her in recent days, adding that she had fled her home in Ogden and her abusive boyfriend.

“I left with just my purse… Just before I left, he broke my phone in half,” she said.

“I didn’t know where to go. I never thought I would end up here.”

A social worker employed by Journey Church said that no encampments are allowed on their premises, but acknowledged that some people sometimes sleep there.

The number of people turning to the church for help and the overall homelessness crisis, she said, is “exploding.”

Senior pastor Chris Bilodeau said his church stands “with the community and for the community, and we do not want camps on our property.”

However, he said it was the duty of the whole of society, not just of the churches, to care for the needy, whose numbers and desperation continued to grow due to the rising cost of food and shelter.

“We have a lot of volunteers from the (surrounding) community,” Bilodeau said.

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The church will hold a town hall meeting with residents on September 5 at 7 p.m. to discuss the issue.

“We want to hear from the community and work with them – we are not turning them away,” Bilodeau said, adding that the church hopes to run a warming room again this winter, funded by the Calgary Homeless Foundation.

The summer program, which provides food and rest rooms, is funded by donations from the community, including parishioners, he said.

In the church lobby, volunteers Rob Vachon and his girlfriend prepared coffee and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for homeless people who arrived.

Both are homeless themselves and live in the Mustard Seed downtown after a roommate became violent last May.

Vachon was outraged at the idea that visibly homeless people should not be welcome in suburban communities.

“These people aren’t hurting anyone – they’re barely surviving,” he said.

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“Everything that is being done here is positive…the faster we help the homeless, the faster we help the community.”

Last week, he said, a man approached him in church and asked him about the presence of homeless people.

“I told him, ‘Come in, look around and see for yourself,'” Vachon said.

“He was pretty rude.”

He pointed out that last winter there was at least one tent camp on the church grounds, inhabited by people who consider the emergency shelters in the city center to be unsafe and unsavory – a common statement made by their users.

According to the city, there are currently 150 to 200 homeless camps throughout Calgary, and 4,904 calls have been received about them this year alone.

“Officers respond to emergency calls with a collaborative and compassionate approach, utilizing outreach resources to assist those at risk,” the city said in an email.

Later Friday, the woman who was injured in the sidewalk encounter two days earlier appeared at Journey Church to discuss the situation with staff.

There she hugged Vachon and spoke with him and a church social worker, but left with the same worries.

“They give people food and that’s fantastic, but it doesn’t solve the problem,” she said.

“It’s like putting a Band-Aid on a wound.”

[email protected]

X: @BillKaufmannjrn

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