A crowd of about 60 hoisting placards pasted with afford able housing slogans and echoing the megaphone calls for action marched on city hall during a noon-hour rally yesterday.

Activists strode their way along Stephen Avenue from Bankers Hall to the munici pal building, hoping lunchtime crowds along the route would listen to their message.

Ryan Robertson, who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and Type 2 diabetes and went through Centre of Hope in Calgary, said he’s had trouble keeping jobs and managing his money and knows exactly how it feels to be without a home.

He works to afford com- fortable, shared accommoda- tion right now, but he was marching in support of those who still don’t have a roof over their head.

“I see a need, a real need for housing in Calgary — af- fordable housing,” said Robertson.

“I want to see something done for everyone who needs affordable housing.”

Also among the crowd of supporters was Karly Phip- pen, a 27-year-old, second- year social work student at Mount Royal College. She said her drive to march was prompted by a re- alization there are far fewer people in Calgary today who can afford to house them- selves, compared with just five years ago. And she be- lieves many students are liv- ing “in poverty,” unable to find a secure source of hous- ing.

“It’s important to have your voice heard. This is a big concern for a lot of peo- ple and I think that all mem- bers of society have an obligation to stand up and let that voice be heard. This, for me, is a now a very personal issue,” said Phippen, who, due to a flood earlier this year, was displaced from her own residence for more than a month.

Image: A small, but vocal, group of demonstrators walk down Stephen Avenue Mall yesterday during a noon-hour rally for affordable housing.