A community activist in Calgary has started a large-scale e-mail campaign warning workers coming to the city that they might not be able to find a place to live.

Rev. Susan Brandt has sent e-mails to about a thousand people across the country, telling recipients: "Do not come to Calgary. There is nowhere to live." The e-mail is done in stark black-and-white lettering, with a black border.

Brandt, who has been a community worker for 25 years, runs Street Level Consulting, a group that works with agencies that serve the homeless. She is worried that the lack of housing for workers arriving in Calgary will lead to freezing deaths this winter.

"We have many people that live outside, that never come inside, and we have some people living outside who have full-time jobs," she said.

She added she sees full-time employees sleeping in their cars or sleeping on a mat in a shelter. It's an experience that can crush one's spirit, Brandt said.

"This is not a healing thing," she said. "These are not the things of a good life."

Brandt said most of the workers who have moved here are from the Atlantic provinces. She has been surprised by Atlantic Canadians' response to her e-mails. "They are saying, 'We have not heard of this,' " Brandt said.

A man interviewed at the Salvation Army shelter said he would have come to Calgary regardless of the warning. He said he has doubled his pay since his arrival.

"There's lots of construction work if you're fit and able. There's no reason you shouldn't be working and in only a matter of a few months you get your money, get your house or your rent and live happily ever after."

But Brandt said there are people who don't live happily ever after. "They don't want to go back," she said. "They've pinned their hopes here and they're making money here." She said some of those people turn to drugs and alcohol.