The Walls Down Collective exists to provide food, clothing, harm reduction, peer support, skill-building opportunities, weekly community engagement initiatives, and 24/7 community crisis response. There are a number of ways to get involved with our initiatives based on your availability and ability. We welcome anyone who has a willingness to learn better ways of caring for our communities, inviting you to explore community care practices through an abolitionist lens.
Community Building
Community building is a slow, intentional process of creating long-lasting and trusted relationships rooted in care for and with one another in order to sustain our collective resistance. Our bi-weekly community discussions and bi-weekly reading group provides an opportunity to meet new people while making an effort to learn, grow, heal and organize together in our various states of understanding of the world around us.
Community Engagement
We provide food and supplies for 350+ people to support our city’s unhoused population. We meet every Friday night to organize pop-up stations beside the Central Library beginning at 7PM. Our stations include free food, clothing, harm reduction, toiletries, barber services, and fun things like arts and crafts or live entertainment. Depending on available supplies and capacity, we will also organize a mobile unit to visit LRT stations and encampments, as well as street teams to visit folks nearby who are unable to make it to the library.
Community Safety
Created after the murder of Latjor Tuel by the Calgary Police, the Community Care & Crisis (CCC) Phone Line is a way to help lessen interactions and impacts local police have on vulnerable populations, and addressing matters with a care-first response free of criminalization. We respond to various situations including physical and verbal altercations, drug poisonings, wellness checks, domestic violence, resource connections and peer support.
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The CCC Phone line operates Wednesday to Friday, 6PM to midnight.
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Our phone number is 587-969-6978.
We are available by text or phone call.
Community Knowledge
Together with Neighbour Knowledge, we provide various skill and knowledge-sharing opportunities to help people feel more confident in responding and approaching a variety of situations. This includes first aid and CPR training, essential self protection/self defence training, Naloxone training and drug poisoning information sessions, medical emergency response training and more.
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(Image of Ash from Neighbour Knowledge, photo by Cinic Studio.)
