St. Patrick’s Summer Street Patrol program is returning for a 29th year of service next month as part of a continued effort to provide full stomachs and smiling faces to Toronto’s most vulnerable.
Youth group outreach offers warmth and hope to homeless
A group of Montreal millennials spent Boxing Day skipping post-Christmas binge buying and instead taking water, food and hot coffee to homeless “children of God” in the city’s downtown core.
Toronto respite centre plans change
Plans to convert an empty commercial building in downtown Toronto into a 60-space, 24-hour, low-barrier respite centre have shifted to become a 50-space shelter for people experiencing homelessness.
Front-line workers witness failure’s revolving door
There is an adage that to get off the streets you need a home, a job and a friend. The reality is that there are not enough affordable homes, few jobs open to those who are homeless and even fewer friends who are willing to walk the harsh streets to sustain hope in the darkness.
Homeless: Search for solution grows more urgent than ever
As number of violent incidents on Toronto streets rises, attention turns to finding new ways to deal with mental illness and addiction among the homeless.
Saint Elizabeth improvises in launching homeless hospice
Like a healthcare jazz band, the Saint Elizabeth Foundation, the charitable arm of SE Health Care, has improvised its way around provincial funding priorities to launch a new hospice for the homeless in Windsor, Ont.
Vancouver rethinking homeless solutions
The oft-told story of the child who throws starfish back into the ocean because “it matters to that one” is the kind of organic growth that Bob Buckham hopes to see when ministering to the homeless in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
Halifax extends shelter initiative through summer
With an ever-growing housing crisis in Nova Scotia, the Archdiocese of Halifax-Yarmouth has extended its emergency shelter initiative.
Youth safeguard the Salesian legacy
For young Salesians at St. Benedict Parish in Toronto’s west end, the legacy and teachings of St. Don Bosco are alive and well.
Architect seeks church partners to shelter homeless in tiny homes
Toronto architect and planner John van Nostrand has over his 40-year career built tiny home communities around the world and is hoping something similar can be brought to Toronto to house the city’s homeless.
Christmas stamps feature work of homeless artist
VATICAN CITY -- Adam Piekarski, a homeless man from Lódz, Poland, never imagined that the sketches he would draw in his free time while waiting for the public showers near Bernini’s Colonnade would lead to the opportunity of a lifetime.
Francis Campbell: Halifax diocese writes its own Nativity narrative
It’s coming on Christmas and the Halifax-Yarmouth archdiocese is writing its own inspirational story of Bethlehem.
Dealing with the reality of homelessness
The tents in city parks, men and women gathered under Toronto’s Gardiner Expressway, lean-tos and sleeping bags scattered through ravines, camp fires among the alder trees near the beaches — none of this is new to Toronto. But it has become a lot more visible since COVID came to town.
Faith Connection rallies around homeless initiative
While most Torontonians are following public health orders to stay home, many of the city’s homeless are still trying to find one.
Youth Reconnect report reveals positive change
A recent report shows that the Good Shepherd’s Youth Reconnect (YR) program has reduced the number of at-risk Hamilton, Ont., youth accessing shelter and other emergency services.