Street Outreach Workers

About the Project
Contact Information
About the Project
Contact Information

About Street Outreach Workers

The 2024 Waterloo Region Point in Time Count identified 2,371 people who were experiencing homelessness in Waterloo Region. The Working Centre has a rich history of doing Street Outreach work, starting in 2003, before homelessness was such a visible reality in our community. We work strategically to know the people who are experiencing homelessness or precarious housing, building relationship, connecting people to services, supporting access to health care and housing supports, and offering support for basic needs.

We host a combination of Street Outreach and Place-Based Outreach Workers for people who are living without shelter, who are experiencing homelessness, facing mental health challenges, active substance use and/or addiction.

Outreach workers from SOS collecting hampers from the Food Bank of Waterloo Region for distribution to hotel and other clients in Kitchener, Ontario.
A woman stands in front of her tent in a vibrant encampment, surrounded by personal belongings and makeshift structures in Kitchener, Ontario.
We actively support people living in encampments, people who are cobbling shelter options, building long-term relationships of trust over time. We provide basic living supports, harm reduction, access to health, mental health, legal and housing services. Living unsheltered is hard work – we help to make sure people are as connected as possible to systems of access and care.
A registered nurse from the SOS team talks to a client outside a tent in a snowy encampment in Kitchener, Ontario.

As we stand witness to the growing hardship and dislocation created by widespread homelessness and the deep challenges of addiction, we work to share this voice with local decision makers, service system managers, churches, groups, and the wider community, and to actively learn about ways to meaningfully respond to these pressing social issues of our time. We work together with determined hope to build the kind of world we want to be a part of. Keep in touch with our quarterly newspaper Good Work News as we share this perspective.

A snowy winter view of the Victoria Weber tent encampment in Kitchener, Ontario, featuring makeshift shelters reinforced with sandbags, tarps, and a bicycle in the foreground.

Contact Information

To reach the Outreach Team or a specific outreach worker, please contact The Working Centre at [email protected]

The Working Centre
58 Queen St. S, Kitchener, Ontario
Canada N2G 1V6

Incorporated as: K-W Working Centre for the Unemployed: Charitable Registration No. 130929607 RR 0001

(519) 743-1151

(519) 743-9452

[email protected]
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