“In the early days at One City, outreach was temporary and much smaller in scale. A single staff member with a backpack, a cell phone, and a map of where people were surviving outside. It was a winter-only effort, reactive and stretched thin, but it was rooted in a simple commitment: if our neighbours are living outdoors, someone should be checking in.
Over the years, that work evolved. We moved from seasonal check-ins to year-round, daily presence. We built partnerships with health providers, housing teams, harm reduction services, and municipal staff. We moved several individuals from their tents into our supportive housing program. We launched pilot projects to respond to unmet needs: the Unity team offering a rapid response for non-emergency crises in the downtown, and the LINK team providing case management services designed to prevent folks from getting stuck in the system.
This work was carried forward by outreach staff who showed up day after day in pouring rain, heatwaves, and heavy snow. They brought a level of skill and emotional intelligence that can’t be taught in a classroom. The kind required to sit with someone in their darkest hour and offer a reason to keep going. For some, outreach was the only consistent thread keeping them tied to the broader homelessness response system.
It is incredibly difficult to share that outreach programs at One City will end in mid-May.
Shifts in funding were the catalyst for this change, which prompted us to look carefully at where we can realistically sustain our efforts. As the needs at the Trinity Hub continue to grow, we have made the difficult decision to focus our resources there. In a system where the needs far exceed what any one organization can responsibly carry, decisions like this are never simple, and this decision is not a reflection of the need we see in our community.
The number of people living outdoors has not decreased. The health concerns haven’t gotten easier to manage. If anything, the world has become a much harder place for our neighbours to survive in. Ending a program like this is difficult precisely because of its impact.
Outreach is slow, relational work. It depends on consistency. It’s built on trust accumulated over months and years. It’s checking on someone who hasn’t been seen in a few days. It’s navigating hospital or shelter discharges, or sudden housing loss, and bearing witness to immense grief. It’s helping someone replace ID for the fifth time. It’s mediating conflict before it escalates. It’s harm reduction. It’s quiet problem-solving and small wins that rarely make headlines.
One of the hardest realities of ending outreach is knowing that people will be left with fewer touchpoints, especially those who distrust institutions or find it impossible to make it into a physical building.
Over the coming months, we’re doing everything we can to transition responsibly. We’re sharing tools, information, and training with partners who may be able to carry forward pieces of the work within their capacity. We’re doing our best to make sure no one is left wondering where we went. After May, our emergency efforts will centre on the Trinity Hub, where we’ll continue to offer food, washrooms, shelter, and a low-barrier place to connect to care.
Outreach was always about more than just a service; it was about the radical act of showing up. We are deeply proud of the years our team spent in the rain, the heat, and the quiet corners of this city. As we transition this work, we carry the lessons learned from the streets with us. The program, for now, is ending, but the work of seeing, supporting, and connecting our neighbours continues.
As a community, it is our hope that we can continue to truly see: the inexcusable conditions unsheltered folks are forced to survive, the courage with which they navigate those conditions, and the possibility of a future where all of our neighbours have access to housing, safety, and connection.”
