Volunteers worry about housing as Ukrainian refugees in Calgary find housing in homeless shelter

When the Kovalenko family arrived in Calgary on May 13 from Zaporizhzhia  in southeastern Ukraine, they didn’t have a place to stay.

The family of five ended up at the Inn from the Cold emergency shelter for eight days.

“The decision to leave Ukraine didn’t come easy,” Yuri Kovalenko, who is a veterinarian, said through an interpreter on Thursday. “It was very hard — basically a split-second decision to take all the bags and to lock up the apartment and to leave.