The end of outreach services at One City Peterborough

One City outreach workers Will Bartley (left) and Jason Smith distribute donuts as part of the Unity Project, which helped people in crisis in the downtown. (Photo by Will Pearson)

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Hi there, it’s co-editor Gabe Pollock here, with your weekly Peterborough Currents email newsletter!

One City Peterborough recently announced that they’re shutting down outreach services – but what does that mean exactly?

What is outreach work? Why is One City shutting it down? What impacts will it have on the local unhoused population? And what will be there in Peterborough in its absence?

The end of outreach services at One City Peterborough

by Gabe Pollock

One City Peterborough has announced that they will be ending outreach services in mid-May. This is a major shift in priorities for the local housing and homelessness non-profit organization, and is certain to have a significant impact on Peterborough’s unhoused population, as well as the whole pipeline of how the city helps this precarious population.

“You never know what the day is going to look like,” says Auden Palmer, One City’s Director of Outreach, reflecting on the work of their team. “What people are going to need, where they’re going to be.”

Outreach workers and volunteers travel into the community to meet with unhoused people on an individual basis, to learn more about their needs and determine what assistance might be available to them. They meet with people literally “where they’re at physically,” but also “where they’re at in their journey, where they’re at emotionally, where they’re at in their day.”

This often starts with handing out food and emergency supplies, which provides immediate relief to people in crisis, but it’s really about “relationship building,” says Palmer, particularly for a population who often feels disconnected from society and wary of social service agencies.

“I say to someone, ‘I’m going to show up here with this bottle of water,’ and then I do – that’s step one.” This “can open up the possibility for conversations about substance use, about treatment, about housing. They can be honest about where they’re at, and can be open to hearing about what’s possible.”

Outreach at One City has also included some specific initiatives, such as the Unity Project, a partnership with local businesses to help people in crisis in the downtown, and LINK, a rapid rehousing program for people who have recently become unhoused, which placed 10 people in housing in just 8 months (“which is, like, unheard of,” says Palmer with a smile).

The decision to end outreach services at One City follows a shift in funding priorities. The federal Reaching Home program has been a major source of funding for outreach at One City, along with private donations, but, says Palmer, the program is refocusing on “housing-focused investments.” Housing is of course a more long-term solution to homelessness, and Palmer says One City is “aligned” with this priority, but it leaves little room for more direct, emergency interventions.

At the same time, the local landscape has shifted, for both One City and social services in Peterborough in general. When One City began their outreach program, The Warming Room had just closed and Peterborough had no low-barrier shelter.

Now, One City operates the Trinity Community Centre, which has both a daytime drop-in program and 45 overnight shelter beds. In November, One City entered into an agreement with the City of Peterborough that should (theoretically) keep Trinity going for the next three years.

Formerly the home of Trinity United Church, the Trinity Community Centre at 360 Reid Street is the hub for One City’s services. (Photo: Will Pearson)

While Trinity isn’t a replacement for outreach, it’s a stable base for One City’s services and is a more accessible (and more visible) space for unhoused people who need support. “It really came down to where we can be the most effective right now, given the level of demand and the complexity that we’re seeing.”

Palmer also highlights the work of other groups who are doing outreach in the community, and who unhoused people can connect with, if they need assistance. This includes volunteer groups like PATH (Peterborough Action for Tiny Homes), who have outreach teams for extreme weather events and operate a weekly drop-in, and Street Level Advocacy of Peterborough, who distribute meals and donations to street-involved people, as well as community agency PARN (Peterborough AIDS Resource Network), who travel into the community to distribute harm-reduction supplies.

One City’s outreach team has worked with these organizations over the years, and is currently passing along information and supplies to help them beyond the transition.

Bev Assinck, program coordinator at PATH, notes that PATH is working with the United Way to organize a meeting of all local agencies currently doing outreach work, to coordinate a response and determine next steps. She says she’s very concerned about how the decision by One City will affect the local homeless population.

Palmer agrees that, no matter what, “there will be impacts. There will be people who are left behind, and it weighs heavily on us. The system is under a massive strain, and I think this decision just highlights the need for coordinated investment at multiple levels of government.”