A visit to One City’s drop-in

You’re reading the November 7, 2025 edition of the Peterborough Currents email newsletter. To receive our email newsletters straight to your inbox, sign up here.

---

Hello, and welcome to the Peterborough Currents email newsletter!

I’m Currents co-editor David Tough. This week I dropped by One City Peterborough’s Trinity Community Centre drop-in, and was taken through the facility by Auden Palmer, One City’s outreach coordinator. 

Plus, my co-editor Gabe Pollock has a list of things to watch for and ways to get involved in the community this week. 

So let’s get to it … 

---

A visit to One City’s drop-in

by David Tough

It was a chilly day, still above freezing, but with a biting winter wind, when I visited the daily drop-in at Trinity Community Centre, One City Peterborough’s low-barrier shelter. As I walked from my home in the south end, I thought of the ways I would have to adapt to the coming winter – wear warmer clothing, use the car more often – and of how the change in seasons must feel catastrophic to people without shelter and income.

But while it’s true that cold weather can be deadly, Auden Palmer, One City’s Director of Outreach Services, who co-ordinates their Outreach Program as well as other programs, cautions that warmer weather, like the long, dry, and hot summer we just had, also makes life hard for people living outside. “Climate is shifting, and our summers are just as dangerous,” Palmer says, with several medical complications that intensify with heat.  

Earlier in the week, the City of Peterborough had agreed to give One City the contract to run the shelter for three more years. The decision, which effectively reversed a previous move to cut One City’s City funding, was made in closed session, and the details are unknown.

“We live in a bit of a weird city,” Palmer says. “It feels like an island sometimes. And if we’re only focused on what’s happening here, of course it can feel terrible. And it is terrible, but we’re not alone in it.”

The Trinity space, which serves as a drop-in centre and the shelter at night, is in an old church on Reid Street that also houses One City’s offices, plus other services including a once-a-week drop-in medical clinic run by the Peterborough Community Health Centre, which officially opened in October.

During my visit, Palmer introduced me to a community member named Cliff, who volunteers and who is currently in the process of applying to work at One City. The organization’s hiring practice values lived experience; it works hard to support staff in coping with the stresses of the job.

“Best practice tells us that lived experience gives staff, not just unique skills and abilities and relational connections, but also supports the person with lived experience in finding purpose in it,” said Palmer. 

Note: this piece has been updated to reflect corrected information: Palmer’s job description, the length of term of One City’s contract to run Trinity, and the name of the community member.

Upcoming Events

by Gabe Pollock

• This weekend (November 7 to 9) is the 39th annual Elders & Traditional Peoples Gathering at Trent University. The Gathering provides an opportunity to share Indigenous knowledge through three days of events, including workshops, film screenings, performances, gatherings, and a keynote address by water rights advocate Autumn Peltier. It will also include a book launch for Jackson Pind’s Students by Day: Colonialism and Resistance at the Curve Lake Indian Day School, which Currents previously discussed.
  
• Tonight is the monthly First Friday Art Crawl around downtown Peterborough. There will be openings at many of the downtown art galleries and shops, plus improv from Rapids End at Dreams of Beans and the Artisan Centre of Peterborough’s annual ARTISANity Show & Sale in Peterborough Square. 
  
• The Ashburnham Memorial Stewardship Group and Clean Up Peterborough will be hosting their annual “Before the Snow Flies” Fall Cleanup event at Armour Hill this Saturday, November 8. Volunteers will meet at the pavilion for a day of litter picking. They will also have a drop-off for hard-to-recycle items. Peterborough Currents discussed Clean Up Peterborough’s RE:Connect event in last week’s newsletter.
  
• It’s budget season in Peterborough. Currents will have more coverage of the municipal budget in the coming weeks, but for now, you can peruse the Draft 2026 Budget Book on the City of Peterborough website. Have your say this coming Monday, November 10, as city council hears public delegations about the budget, then watch the marathon two-day budget review meetings the following week, on November 17 and 18, before it’s finalized and adopted (barring any delays) on December 8.

---

---

Thanks for reading the Peterborough Currents email newsletter! Here’s where you can sign up to have these sent straight to your inbox.