Starting a new life in Calgary's rental market seems out of reach for some new refugees

It looks like an ordinary hotel from the outside, but walk into the lobby and something feels different. 

Gone are business travellers and tourists. Now the clientele here is exclusively made up of refugees, mostly from Afghanistan. Two women in hijabs sit behind what used to be the hotel's reception desk. The busy lobby is filled with quiet conversations in languages like Pashto and Dari.

Nobody is going anywhere in a hurry. 

This is one of two hotels in Calgary that are now filled with government-sponsored refugees — some stuck as the tight rental market makes it tough to secure private accommodation and move on.

They're priced out, says Afghan refugee Fatima Tabish, who invited CBC Calgary to visit her temporary community at the hotel just off Macleod Trail. 

The federal government covers rent for the first year while refugees find their feet and secure a job. But Tabish is finding the $1,200 allowance just isn't enough in the current rental market.

"Life is so nice in Canada, especially in Calgary. People are so good, so kind, but the challenge is the rent. It's expensive," said Tabish, eating lunch in the sunshine outside the hotel.

"We are looking for homes, but the big problem is the rents are going up, higher and higher. Everything is so expensive." 

According to the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society (CCIS), 5,400 Afghan refugees arrived in Calgary between September 2021 and August 2022, with about a third planning to stay in this city. Another roughly 1,500 government-sponsored refugees came from other countries in the past year.

And there are other demands on this city's rental housing stock.

CCIS says roughly 10,000 Ukranians moved to Calgary and the surrounding communities since that country was invaded by Russian.

And for internal migration — data from Statistics Canada shows a net in-migration to Alberta of nearly 10,000 people from other parts of Canada in just the second quarter of the year. That's the biggest population boom in years, and it's mostly of people from Ontario.

Tabish shared her story sitting in the parking lot just outside the packed hotel. Every few minutes, the CTrain whizzed by on the tracks nearby and a young boy on a bike rode slow circles around an old hockey net.

Sidewalk chalk scrawlings and colourful drawings along the side of the hotel tell of the kids who also call this place home.